How should you prioritize your todo list? Listen to your body.

I have a mental trick I use to prioritize my todo list. I listen to my body to tell me what to do.

It goes like this:

• Imagine a todo list item is already finished.
• Listen to your body. Is there a reduction in anxiety? Is there a sense of accomplishment?
• Whichever item feels best to imagine finishing, do that one first.

This is valuable because it clears my thinking. Sometimes undone todo items create a mental block. I can’t do the things I think I should do, because I haven’t done the things that will make me feel better.

What’s this like in practice? Let’s say I have these things on my todo list:

• Write a Medium post.
• Check in with my immigration lawyer on the status of my visa.
• Buy dish soap.

There are a number of ways this could play out. My visa allows me to keep my physical body and possessions in Colombia, where I live. It would be terribly inconvenient to have my visa expire. I might have to leave the country or make an urgent trip to an embassy or immigration office.

It would create an emergency—something unnecessarily urgent that would cause undue stress and take away from the important-but-not-urgent things I’d rather spend my time on.

So, the status of my visa is a potential source of stress that could block my ability to do other important things. If I can feel that reduction of stress while imagining checking in on the status of my visa, then that’s what I should do.

If I already feel confident of the status of my visa application, or if the expiration of my visa is several months away, imagining finishing that item is unlikely to cause much reduction in feelings of anxiety, or to make me feel good in another way. So, it’s unlikely to be a high priority.

On the other hand, shipping creative work is important to me. If I haven’t shipped something creative recently, I get anxious. Going a long time without shipping creative work damages my self-perception as a writer and creator. It makes me question my own existence.

So, if I haven’t shipped some creative work recently, and my visa isn’t in danger of expiring soon, writing the Medium post will be a higher priority. If I imagine shipping a Medium post, I can imagine how good it will feel.

What about buying dish soap? I do my best not to let my dish soap get so low that it would become urgent enough to get in the way of the other things. I’d just put it on my shopping list. I end up at the grocery store often enough that I know I won’t run out of dish soap this way.

Next time you’re trying to prioritize your todo list, try it: Imagine each item being finished. How does it feel? Act accordingly.

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