Rethinking the To-Do List

What if we focused on reaching an emotion or an experience instead of completing tasks each day?

Vincent Van Patten
a Few Words
Published in
2 min readJan 15, 2021

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Photo by Bishka Nguyen on Unsplash

I don’t usually look back at what I’ve written in my journal. As I was about to turn the page before going to sleep, my eyes caught a glimpse of what I’d written that morning.

  • Three things I’m grateful for
  • Three most essential tasks for the day
  • Other tasks that aren’t as important

Writing down the above is a relatively new practice I’ve incorporated into my morning routine. While it does help set an intention for the day, I didn’t realize how powerful it would be to look back at what I’d written once the day was done.

I got two out of three essential tasks done, and most of the rest. I guess I couldn’t finish the job.

Does that mean it was an unsuccessful day? I thought about the parts of my day I didn’t prepare for. It’s the time between the to-do’s that make life worth living.

I walked outside three times and felt the warm energy of the sun. I became a part of nature.

I did my best to lift others up who maybe needed it more than I’ll ever know.

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Vincent Van Patten
a Few Words

Exploring what lights my soul on fire while living in Japan. Host of The Dare to Dream Podcast vincentvanpatten.com