How to Turn an Overwhelming Task List into a Sustainable Schedule

Are you constantly overwhelmed by the number of items on your to-do list each day?

Does the mere sight of your task list give you the heebie-jeebies? There are lots of people in the same boat, but the good news is that you can do something about it! When you have a hectic schedule, simply having a to-do list isn’t enough, you need to know how to optimize it so you can make the best use of your time. This applies to absolutely everything in life from managing your social calendar for the next few months to managing an extensive work project.

It’s important to realize that organizing your life means organizing every part of it and not just your professional to-do list. This applies whether you like the idea of a strict work/life balance or a more blended lifestyle without strict perimeters. After all, it’s pretty likely that any chaos in your personal life will wreak havoc with your professional schedule too.

Staying on top of your upcoming tasks and obligations in both areas of your life will help you to stay ahead of your plans and avoid the panic associated with any forgotten last-minute items hitting your inbox.

But you know all of this, right? Most of us do. The question is, how do you put it into action?

Let’s Start With the Time Famine Phenomenon

If you constantly feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the week, you’re definitely not alone. According to a 2015 Gallup study, about 6 in 10 Americans say they don’t have enough time to do what they want. But the problem isn’t about the time we have available, it’s about how we use that time and manage the distractions that threaten optimal usage of it. I mean, you have Slack set up on your computer right? Or some kind of messaging app? How many times do you check it per day? And what about email?

A recent study on productivity in the workplace showed that we check these apps every 6 minutes on average. How on earth are you meant to make the best use of your time if it’s constantly interrupted in this fashion? Newsflash; you can’t. So it’ll be no surprise to hear that these interruptions mean almost half of knowledge workers can’t focus for more than 30 minutes at a time during their workdays. Yikes.

Most of these incoming messages will be preemptive tasks or updates on current tasks, so the temptation to deal with them on the spot is very real. But our Operations Manager, Dane Hofbauer, highly recommends utilizing the 2-minute rule in this instance.

“If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it now. If it takes longer, save it for later. Once you have reviewed all Notifications, you can determine your path for the day.”

— Dane Hofbauer, Buckets

Whether your incoming tasks are firing into your inbox or iPhone or stemming from real-life conversations, the most important thing is to get anything time-consuming out of your head until you have time to focus on it. Without forgetting about it in the process! This is where the Buckets Sandbox comes in.

The Sandbox is a space to jot down all your incoming messages, thoughts, and anything actionable that you need to get out of your brain to free up space for what you’re working on at the present moment. This information can be contained in the Sandbox until you have time to address it and either complete/delete it or move it into the applicable Project.

Has an email come in when you’re focused on something else? Forward it to the Sandbox to deal with later. Did you come across some useful information at a conference? Type it into your Sandbox Notes and decide what to do with it later. Got a quick to-do list that doesn’t require a Project? Create and complete it within the Sandbox without even moving it into your main Buckets Projects list.

For more important and often recurring tasks, these can be exported into the appropriate Project and Columns where you can personally manage or assign them by creating an efficient workflow with the help of our Card/Checklist Duplication and Reminder/Due Date features.

Strategic Thinking: Create More Clarity by Planning your Work for the Day

“If you’re not clear on what you’re doing, it’s hard to be motivated. Which is why seemingly easy tasks, like sending a fax, could end up taking months. There’s a lack of clarity on how to do it, so you don’t — until either you have to or it’s too late.” — Benjamin Hardy

You are rarely going to get all of your work done in one day. And telling yourself that is actually just going to create overwhelm that will impede your ability to get anything done at all. To combat this, it’s important to plan out your workday by organizing your tasks and setting limits for any “in progress” tasks that simply cannot be completed by the time your day is over. The art of prioritizing is that it allows you to focus on one task at a time (which is pretty much the ethos behind Buckets) and work on what matters most first.

A great way to do this in Buckets is to create Cards (tasks) that include all of the information you need to complete the task. Then break your tasks down into mini-goals/stepping stones by creating a Checklist that contains the building blocks for task completion. Each building block (task item) can also have an associated deadline. Do not underestimate the satisfaction you get from ticking off each item along the way!

“These features can reduce actual work by creating an almost “auto-pilot” routine.”

— Eric, Buckets co-founder

This helps to train your brain when to say “that’s enough for today” and allow you to switch off when your day is done. Don’t panic about any unfinished tasks — this is normal — you simply cannot do everything in a day. If you have a few tasks remaining that you really wanted to get done, just carry them over to the next day and ensure you get on top of them then.

The key to this is flexibility. Life happens. And managing your work and tasks correctly allows you to navigate around any unexpected situations that crop up to get in the way of what you want to accomplish that day.

Short and Regular Breaks Will Sustain your Schedule and your Sanity

When you’re super busy, the last thing on your mind is taking a break. I get it. But this is the most important thing you can do to recharge your mind, get a fresh outlook, and reboot your focus. I personally use a Pomodoro Timer throughout my working day to ensure I take regular short breaks to recharge and move around a bit and it makes ALL of the difference to my energy levels both physically and mentally.

Working Smart > Working Busy

The “busy” mentality is still very real, so it’s important not to get stuck in a trap of ticking boxes in this manner either. Have you ever spent a day feeling super busy but ending the day with very little actionable results to show for your hard work? This is something you can fix by learning how to think more strategically and say no to anything that will derail you too far from your plan of action.

But the most important thing to keep in mind when doing this is that you cannot do it all. You don’t need to feel guilty for not running yourself into the ground. It’s actually the smarter solution to managing your time properly so that you produce quality work and get optimal results.

“Being productive is really a battle. It’s the worst kind of battle: a battle against yourself.” — Ryan Holiday

When you’re busy, taking time out to do some “strategic thinking” may seem like a waste of your limited time. But it’s important and you need to make time for it on a consistent basis. Procrastination research has shown that we’re most likely to procrastinate when working on tasks that have high stakes so strategic thinking tends to take a backseat. Considering that these tasks are actually those that require the bulk of our focus, it’s important to block out the time for strategic thinking each week in order to get them done.

Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize Some More

Prioritization sounds easy until you have to sit down and do it. But ultimately we’re just not that great at it. Whilst most people can see the importance of putting less important tasks to the bottom of the pile, we also tend to severely underestimate the time required to complete a project (you can blame the Planning Fallacy for this).

This is why at Buckets we’ve added a Reminder/Deadline feature that allows you to add the start and end date of each task so that even if you have a rough estimate you have to sit down and actually think about how long it will take.

I’m not sure how I’d ever get done without deadlines, and this rings true for the majority of people. You just have to look at Parkinson’s Law which says that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”, which basically means that the more time you allow yourself to complete a task, the longer it will take to complete.

So where’s the sweet spot that ensures your deadlines are short enough to help you stay productive but long enough to help you avoid overwhelm? I always overshoot a little on deadlines because your “overestimation” will likely be closer to how long the task actually takes to complete in the end, so I suggest starting there and you’ll eventually find your sweet spot once you’ve been doing it for a while.

Be Realistic About What You Can Do

Successful task management isn’t about getting everything done at once, it’s about getting everything done as optimally as possible in the time you have available to do it. So this part isn’t just about time management, it’s about guilt management.

However, this is much easier said than done. Like most other people on the planet, I tend to think I’m superwoman on Sunday evening when I’m planning out my week. That 2000w blog post? Oh I’ll get that done super fast. Navigating my work around a hectic week in my personal life? No worries, I’ve got it! Sleep? Weh, who needs sleep?!

Then Wednesday rolls around, I open my to-do list with squinty eyes looking at one task at a time, pretty much like when you’re watching a horror movie scene that you really want to see but aren’t quite sure you can handle. And then I realize — I have not got it. Cue packing 5 days of work into 3 or working through the weekend. Which, to be honest, usually works out absolutely fine. But, it’s stressful. And if you can avoid stress, why wouldn’t you?

You need to understand that it’s okay to move those last 2 tasks from today’s to-do list over to tomorrow. It’s okay to reschedule a call for later in the week. It’s okay to push back a deadline because something more important comes up. Flexibility and being honest with yourself really is the key to successfully maintaining a sustainable schedule, because as much as you plan, you cannot plan for every situation.

One of the best ways to get a handle on this to give yourself a cut-off point each day where you review your to-do list and move anything you haven’t got done into tomorrow’s list. One of the best ways to alleviate any guilt you associate with that is to create a “Done” list that you can review at the end of each day and celebrate what you’ve accomplished! This is something based on the kanban methodology we use in Buckets also.

“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” — Greg McKeown Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Focus: If You Can’t Eat the Frog, Start With an Appetizer

Sometimes you get those days where you really struggle to get started. We’ve all been there. And whilst doing your most important task first is a great method to use, it’s not always feasible when just turning on your computer requires all of your mental energy.

On these days, I find it best to just start the day with one easy thing; something that’s important but easy to do. It has to be a task that will give you that “YES, WINNING!” buzz when you’ve completed it because this is what will drive your motivation for that day.

Starting the day with a task that you know is going to carry on into the next day and the next isn’t going to make you feel like you’ve made progress, and you really need that quick boost to get your brain into gear on low energy days like this. Once you have this task ticked off (don’t you love that feeling?) it’ll be much easier to move onto other items on your task list.

Eliminate the Noise: Focus Only on What You Can Control

Learning how to create a workflow that allows for the influx of tasks you have to manage on a daily basis is one of the most important steps in using a task management system, and this is a process that should be customized according to how you work best. This is one of the key benefits of using a task management system like Buckets. We know that everyone has their own style of working and Buckets gives you the flexibility to work at your best with minimal restrictions on how you like to organize your workload.

“If you want to live powerfully and move the world forward, you need a filtering system to eliminate the harmful noise from your life. You need to keep things simple, discernible, actionable, and helpful.” — Benjamin Hardy

One of the main proponents of the highly visual kanban system we use in Buckets is that you only ever focus on one task at a time. Buckets also has an upcoming new Threads feature to replace the previous Notifications feed and this is something that Buckets CEO Mike uses as his personal to-do list. In Threads (which we’re testing in-house right now), Notifications are grouped into 4 sections which makes them much easier to follow, especially when you have a lot of updates coming in at once.

You can “star” any items you want to highlight in Threads and this is one way of keeping anything you want to get done or follow up on to the front of your mind without getting distracted by anything else. This gives the item visual hierarchy over the others around it, so after all of your threads are processed you’re left with those starred items to get completed. Once that’s done, you’re done.

“I determine if something in my Threads is star worthy or if I’ve absorbed enough info and I’m done with it for now. If it isn’t worthy of a star, it’s time to clear it out.”

— Mike, Buckets co-founder & CEO

When you’re working with a team, you’ll need to organize your tasks according to who’s working on what and create a schedule that’s easy to follow for everyone. Buckets co-founder Eric, works with multiple teams so he gets quite an influx of Notifications throughout the day. In order to avoid unnecessary distraction, Eric looks at his incoming Notifications as a resource that delivers communication on a current task but not necessarily the beginning of another.

The main focus here is to avoid Threads from becoming a distraction that makes you lose focus from the task at hand, especially since the whole point of the kanban system is to focus on one task at a time. This is something that definitely applies when you’re managing tasks for various teams and Projects that require ongoing monitoring and oversight.

Find Your Own Way of Working

Some users prefer to keep the sole focus on their Project workflows throughout the day and only check Notifications at specific periods. Dane, who manages a lot of Buckets team members and tasks, has a particular way of organizing his workflow in this manner. In contrast to how Eric works, Dane only checks his Notifications in Buckets Threads every morning and evening. Although he has push Notifications set up so that he can keep an eye out for anything urgent that comes through during the day.

Dane is very conscious of Card movement and placement, so all of his Projects, Columns, and Cards are in order of importance. As each Card moves across the Project, the Columns are more and more important until the task is considered complete. The height of each Card on a column indicates its priority ranking. This is actually an expansion of the to-do>doing>done kanban method and it’s similar to how I organize my own workflow. In terms of prioritizing Projects, Dane also organizes his Project list by positioning each in order of importance.

The unexpected will always happen and your schedule has to leave room for that regardless of how strictly you want to stick to it. It’s important to embrace the flexibility that a tool like Buckets can provide and change your focus when and as needed. Whilst your priority task list is important, you should never stick to a task on this list if something more important comes up.

On the other side of things, you also need the discipline to stick to your priority tasks for the most part and not get sidetracked by constant incoming Notifications. This is something learned mostly from experience but it is something you can consistently monitor and ensure you are sticking to as much as possible on a daily basis. These tried and trusted methods of managing your Notifications to create a sustainable schedule long-term will help you to do just that.

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