Replace your to-do list for a done list
Have you ever noticed that some tasks just hang on to your to-do list and never get done? More often than not, these are probably big tasks that are in fact composed of lots of little tasks.
I’ll give a real-life example, straight from my own to-do list: “finish dissertation”.
For the past two years (roughly) I had this written down amongst other tasks and it just didn’t get done — obviously! By giving myself such a huge chore as one single to-do item, I did the exact opposite of what I was trying to achieve. Instead of motivating myself to get things done, it made me feel like I was going nowhere.
Then, on some random day, I looked at my to-do list and realized I had done tons of things that were not listed but were very necessary to get to where I wanted to be. I had identified relevant research questions, organized my files, written important e-mails, and even daily tasks like shopping and laundry — hey, we’re all human!
This prompted me to start a “done list” in addition to my “to-do list” and it was wonderful!
The basic idea is that lots of the tasks we set ourselves out to do involve tiny steps, which we don’t usually acknowledge. For example, at a certain stage in my dissertation I had to finish one of my chapters. In my postgraduate course, each chapter consists of a full scientific article with their own introduction, methods, results, etc. So, in order for me to “finish dissertation”, as I had written down, I would first have to “write article”.
Writing a full scientific article isn’t a simple task either, so just adding that to the list didn’t really get me far…
However, I started writing down at the end of the day things like “downloaded paper for reading”, “wrote e-mail to colleague about making a figure”, “chose journal for publication”… and the task started to be less overwhelming. Things started to feel like they were going somewhere!
This of course does not substitute my to-do list entirely. However, looking back on all the little things I’ve done over the day really keeps me motivated.
I’ve suggested this strategy to some of my colleagues already and I even found out that other people do the same and call it a “ta-da list”!
Whether you use Trello, other online resources, or just good ol’ paper and pen to write down what you need to do, I highly recommend you try out this strategy.
I’m sure adding “blog post” to my done list today!
