The To-Do List Isn't The Point

In my very first company, I had a partner who made me write to-do lists. Every day.

He had just moved back to Ottawa after years at a big-deal Toronto agency. I was just a lowly graphic designer with no business experience, no processes, and to be honest, no self-discipline. So he’d show up at my home office every morning, set up in the folding chair across my desk from me, and ask: “Do you have your list?”

He instinctively understood that I was useless at anything admin-related, so he handled that side of the business. I still hear his voice saying,  “I can see your eyes glaze over whenever I bring up a spreadsheet, but I need you to pay attention to this for 60 seconds. Please.” He was great. We’d spend the whole day tapping away on our computers, me creating, him doing all the boring stuff.

Except one thing. He wouldn’t do my to-do list for me. That part was mine.

That was fifteen years ago and it became a habit I still use today.

The Stupidest Hacks That Actually Work

(This is a five-part series. See the link to Part #1 below.)

2. To-Do Lists

Over the years I’ve tried both digital and physical to-do lists, and I vastly prefer the physical version. Always in pencil. (At later jobs I became known for my obnoxiously loud electric pencil sharpener.)

I like a Moleskine book these days (graph-paper only, please), but for years it was just a piece of printer paper (folded to about the size of a small Moleskine). There’s probably something psychological about summarizing a lot of work into a small space - and maybe also not having a ton of empty space to fill on slow days.

For me, the appeal of the physical list is that it takes me away from the mess of my workspace (my computer) and into a setting that feels more conducive to top-down thinking. I write down everything I can think of that needs to get done, usually looking out a few days to a week. Basically: everything I need to do before I next talk to each of my clients.

How To Brain Dump

Granularity is a Balance

You can’t just write “Make website” and hope to check that off someday. But you also can’t write out every step of building a website on a half-sheet of paper. I like to keep the list to something I could plausibly get done in the next two days, maybe a week. Even if it’s a daily list, it’s good to have a sense of what you’ll move to next.

Prioritization is Key

Once the whole list is written, I scan through it and mark three items that absolutely must be done today with three asterisks (***). Then I pick three more that need to get done by tomorrow (or soon-ish) and give those a single asterisk (*). That’s it. If you have more than three of each, you probably wrote the list wrong. Or you need help.

And None of it Matters

Here’s the real kicker: the list doesn’t matter. I might not even look at it again.

I even put little boxes next to each item, but I actually rarely check them off. (Someday someone will find my stack of notebooks and have a panic attack flipping through the pages of unchecked tasks.)

The point was never to complete the list. The point was to quiet the noise.

The simple act of sequentially putting it all down on paper reorganizes your mind and lets it take a break from jumping from one thing to another to keep it all remembered. 

Even a loosely remembered list of three things will cause you more stress than a clearly written list of ten. 

When it’s written down, it’s no longer your brain’s job to hold it - and your brain, finally, gets to do what it’s meant to do: create, not retain.

Further Reading

Last week I wrote about another stupidly simple productivity hack that I begrudgingly admit works: Taking A Nice Long Walk. Like to-do lists, walking isn't really about the walking - it's about giving your brain permission to wander and make connections. Both hacks work for the same reason - they give that big creative brain of yours some space to breathe.

Parting Thought

If you’re like me, admin and organizational advice has been levelled at you your whole life. Everyone has figured out some great trick or methodology that’s super simple to follow and most importantly, works for them. The key to any advice like this is to find a way to make it your own. If writing lists isn’t your thing, don’t do it. Find another way to get things out of your head and somewhere they won’t get deleted. When you’re a creative professional your mind is your workshop so you need to declutter it before you start working. Find a way to do this that works with your nature and not against it.

And let me know how it goes. Don’t forget. ***