The Power of…the To-Do List

A to-do list is a powerful thing. You won’t always stick to it by the letter, and in fact often you need to remember to be flexible and let yourself deviate from it, but it can offer some needed structure to a busy life. We all have a thousand things going on at once in the 21st century. They might not be huge, stressful things every day. But we still have a lot to do.

Nothing is un-doable, but if you can’t remember to do it, then you won’t, and even the smallest thing on a list that goes undone can have negative ramifications on your day. When we have too much to remember to do we can become uncentered, and ungrounded. From that place, it’s almost impossible to show up for life fully and joyously. So give yourself the gift of a list — a little bit more power and agency over your life.

Not everything on your list is always going to be the easy stuff. Sometimes it is the huge, stressful stuff that you need to tackle. Sometimes, the biggest thing on the list is: HOW DO I EVEN GO ABOUT STARTING TO MAKE THIS LIST?

Let’s say you are in a new job and you suddenly find yourself needing to learn a whole new skillset. You know you don’t have the training or the knowledge yet to do what you need to do effectively. You’re not even totally sure where to begin getting this training. You’re not even totally sure what it is you are supposed to learn. It’s a scary feeling, and fear is pernicious.

There is only one thing to do: you need to do some homework and make a plan. Enter, the to-do list! 

We are going to go old school basic now, so bear with. No rolling your eyes!

For example, if you work in marketing and suddenly your job entails social media and graphic design, find out who out there is doing something similar well. Research what other people or companies are marketing the same thing as you, and deep dive into what that looks like. Isolate the things that seem to be working well, the components of their strategy that look interesting, the parts that you know are good but you don’t know how to do, the parts that look good and you do know how to do, the things that you think should be done differently, even if you’re not completely clear on what that should look like.

1. Write each of these things down on the left-hand side of a sheet of paper.
2. Like a pro and con list, on the right hand side of the sheet of paper write down if you know how to do whatever it is that you have noted: Yes, no, or sort of.
3. Now take a second sheet of paper out and on the left hand side write down only the things you don’t know how to do, or only sort of know how to do. On the right hand side, note down if you know how to go about learning how to do these things: this is just yes or no.
4. Take out a third sheet of paper and on the left hand side write down all the things you don’t know how to do yet, but know how to go about learning. On the right hand side, write down what you need to do to begin your training. For each thing it might be different – Ask Jamie; Buy that book on Amazon; Signup for that weekend intensive course on social media strategy; Take an online course on how to work Photoshop and Illustrator; Watch those instructional videos.
5. On a fourth sheet of paper, rank in order (to the best of your ability) which things on the left hand side of your first sheet of paper are most time-sensitive, most important, whether you know how to do them or not, whether you even know how to go about learning them or not.
6. Open up your computer and start a new Word document. This is your to-do list. Copy down everything from your fourth sheet of paper, in that order.
   1. What you know how to do, let the task stand alone.
   2. What you don’t yet know how to do but know how to go about learning, put a dash next to and note down the corresponding action — Ask Jamie; Buy that book on Amazon; Signup for that weekend intensive course on social media strategy; Take an online course on how to work Photoshop and Illustrator; Watch those instructional videos.
   3. What you don’t know how even go about learning, put in bold.
7. Save the document (but keep it open in front of you) and go back to paper. Write down everything that is in bold on your to-do list. Don’t reread the list once you’ve written it.
8. Put everything aside and walk away from your desk. Allow yourself to breathe and take a break, and remember that the very act of making these lists was a huge step forward.
9. Now you can go back to your desk. Take a look at the list of things you wrote down in Step 7. How do you feel? Do you feel still anxious about what you have written down? Do you feel hopeful that the list is actually quite small? Do you have any sudden inspiration for places you can go to learn these skills? I’m willing to bet it’s a bit of all three. But I’m equally confident that even if you still feel a bit anxious, you feel leaps and bounds better than you did before this exercise.

Be honest – do you in fact feel better? It’s hard not to at this point. The lists weren’t even really the point of this exercise, though they will of course be of huge benefit to you. The real power of the to-do list lies in the fact that the very exercise of making it forced you not to think too much about everything at once. It’s its own kind of mindfulness training. You stayed present in that moment, worked methodically, were quite literally unable to spin out emotionally because you stayed focused on tiny little tasks rather than letting yourself get mired down by fear and anxiety.

Now I’m going to tell you something: Everything on that list is doable. If you want to do it, you can do it.