the 3 lists you should be making
& how to stop letting to-do lists control your life
“Wake up.”
“Brush teeth.”
“Make coffee.”
If you get great satisfaction from checking boxes, your to-do list may look something like this: full of tasks that you’re going to complete anyway, so you can get the feeling of completing something.
Unfortunately, that leaves the more important tasks that you actually need to accomplish or the ones that you are difficult to tackle lost in this plethora of other things to do.
It also makes for endless to-do lists… which creates the feeling of running on a hamster wheel, fighting against time to get everything done.
Here’s a secret: Your to-list is always going to be incomplete if you create it like this. There’s no way to finish everything you want in a day because tasks will keep adding up.
I’ve put together three lists that you should make to replace the one very long to-do list, so you can stop living your life glued to the Notes app of your iPhone or a post-it.
1. The “Errands” / “Short Term Priorities” List
I actually break these out into two lists:
