Why Your Daily To Do List is Crippling Your Efficiency (and How to Fix it)

Your Daily To Do List. Friend or Foe?

The simple daily ‘to do list’, well known and loved the world over by those who would be organized, productive and efficient in their activities.

But is your daily to do list actually harming your output levels and reducing your effectiveness? I say it is.

Thing is – unless you’re Mr.Spock, then you ain’t a creature of pure logic, and the daily to do list has an emotional impact which simply can’t be ignored.

Your Daily To Do List is Grinding You Down 

Daily To Do lists are all too often incomplete at the close of play, which slowly grinds us down emotionally as the ‘unticked’ tasks rack up, day after day, week after week, year after year… (a lifetime of things left undone – youch!)

Even for the resilient types who can absorb the ‘failure’ to complete the tasks they’ve set themselves, the simple daily to do list is subtly imprinting us with the message that we don’t complete the tasks we should, and we don’t have what it takes to achieve the goals we set for ourselves.

On a quantum and subconscious level, our brain is registering incompletion, then that expectation is then injected into everything else we do.

Success breeds success. But Failure breeds failure.

But there is another way. Despite my message of doom and gloom for out dear old daily to do list, there is a to do list which will satisfy our need for organizational structure in our daily activities and support our productivity.

Master Your To Do List With a Master To Do List

The Master to-do list is the ‘enlightened elder’ in the tribe of to do lists. Radient and respledant, it shines and pulsates with effectiveness, promise of increased productivity, and a firm basis in an approach which actually works.

The Master to-do list in Action

The Master to do list is written up before the day you’re going to begin to tackle the tasks listed. It’s written on a pad of paper.

Not in ‘Notepad’, not in ‘Text edit’, and not using TaDaList, Toodledo, ToDoist, Rememberthemilk, your iPhone, iPad, iPod or any other online or electronic medium.

On paper. In a pad. With a pen or pencil. (Remember those?)

Onto the Master to do list go the immediate tasks you want to complete.

How many activities you put on here is up to you. Add all the core things you want to get done over the next few of days, breaking any larger tasks down into chunks. Prioritizing helps to make sure the key stuff gets dealt with first.

Fantastico! You’ve made your Master to do list. Next day, after your morning productivity ritual, you’re going to set about completing the tasks on the list as you would with your old daily to do list.

Now – you probably ain’t gonna complete everything on the list on day one. But that’s OK. You’re not supposed to.

What you’re supposed to do is create a new list that night, transfering the remaining tasks to the next page of your Master to do list pad, adding any new tasks that may have come up during that day.

Now for the fun part. Take the old list, and tick, scrub or cross out every remaining task. Your relationship with them has finished for the day, and the cycle of adding and removing them from your list is complete.

Wish the list a fond farewell (if you’re a sentimental type), scrunch it up, and throw it in the trash to be recycled. Now empty your lungs, take a deep breath in, and revel in the freedom that letting go of your obligations to the day has given you.

And that’s it. Repeat daily, observing the change in your relationship with your to do list, and how it helps you complete the tasks that have to get done.

What do To Do Lists Mean to You?

Do you use a daily to do list? Do you have a master to do list? How do they help or hinder you?

To get maximum leverage of your time and effort, incorporate this productivity strategy with a healthy foundation and stay focused on each task as you address it.

Please share this post with your friends and networks, and remember to check in each Wednesday for more Productivity tips to help you be more productive, and achieve your goals.

Image adapted from ‘Kids to do list, be happy and go home’ by Carissa Rogers – CC 2.0

Why the Simple Daily To Do List is Crippling Your Output © 2011 Blogger’s Alchemy