Your “Silent To-Do List” is Stealing Your Time and Focus

Here’s how to destroy the damn thing.

Photo by Yitzhak Rodriguez on Unsplash

I hate to-do lists. They’re always long and annoying and once I strike one thing off, three more magically appear at the bottom.

Even more, I hate the silent to-do list.

This is a concept I recently came across and it blew my mind.

It goes a long way to explain why the likes of me, you, and everyone else finds living a simple life so tricky. And why our heads are always so busy.

Let’s get stuck in.

The silent to-do list is a killer

The term was coined by Japanese author Fumio Sasaki in his book Goodbye Things and goes like this:

Every item in your home and life needs to be taken care of or maintained. Each item will “signal” that to you, forcing you to create a silent to-do list in your mind.

Some examples:

• Dirty dishes signal you need to clean the kitchen.
• Plants signal they need watering or maintaining.
• Clothes in the closet could spark guilty thoughts like why have you not worn me yet?
• A cluttered desk signals you need to tidy it before getting down to work.