How to keep from drowning in your to-do list

Jaiela London
Nov 5 · 4 min read

When your plate is overflowing with work, how do you keep from drowning in your to-do list?

We always have work, school and personal projects going on. There always seems to be new tasks fighting for our attention. It can be easy to get lost or overwhelmed by it all. Here’s how you can stay on top of everything, become more efficient and finally finish those projects in the different areas of your life.


Find the right tool

It’s best to start projects by planning out the first steps of what needs to get done. That’s why you need to have a system to organize your various tasks, and deadlines.

Start using a project management app like Asana, Trello, or Todoist. After switching between several apps I personally have come to like Asana the best, but it’s important that you try several out to find what works best for you.

When searching, consider what features you’d want to have. Do you value simplicity or full customization? Are list styles appealing to you, or would you prefer to work with a calendar or kanban style? Play around with different project management systems to see which features you like best.

Write your to-do list

Once you’ve settled on a system, it’s time to list out the steps you need to take. Start by doing a brain dump of all the tasks you can think of that you’ll need to check off to complete the project.

Sometimes it can be difficult to plan out an entire project in the beginning. It’s completely fine if you start out with only a few tasks and add more as you go along. If you’re working on an especially long or complicated project, just focus on the first couple of tasks you can do in the week ahead.

Set a schedule

Now that you have the first couple of steps laid out, it’s time to plan when you’ll take them. I recommend that you schedule your tasks through your project management app and Google Calendar. Most project management apps allow you to set a due date for tasks and will notify you when they’re coming up. And Google Calendar is great to use because you can easily sync it with your phone so you can always know what’s planned for the days ahead.

I tend to use a bit of both. I’m a participant in Praxis, a professional development program and every week I have new tasks and projects to work on. I’ll plan and schedule most of my tasks on Asana. And I’ll add recurring events to Google Calendar to remind myself to participate in the daily blogging challenge or weekly group calls.

Once I have all the tasks for the week written out in Asana, I’ll start to schedule when I’ll complete them. It’s easier to start your week with the end goal in mind. Then you’ll know what needs to get done and be able to evenly spread out the workload.

Plan ahead

Things will always come up. You’ll experience setbacks. Or Projects will end up taking longer than expected. So you must be prepared to face challenges.

Always plan to be early. Give yourself extra time to meet deadlines or get to meetings. By planning to be early, you greatly reduce the chance of you ever being late. Worst case scenario, you’re just on-time. You also create higher quality work when you’re not rushing. And as you give yourself time to go over and revise your work, it becomes finer tuned.

Planning ahead is also important when you are collaborating with others on a project. Especially when you’re in a situation where you have to rely on another person to move your project forward. You can’t control how others manage their time, but you can control how you manage yours. Create space for buffer time when working with the schedules of multiple people. Doing this signals that you are dependable. You work well with others, And you get things done.

Utilize time blocking

Practice doing focused work. Use the Pomodoro technique by blocking out time to focus exclusively on your project. Whether you decide to work for 25, 60 or 90 minutes, set aside the time to focus on your craft.

This can be hard because it’s easy to get distracted. We often make false promises to ourselves saying “I’ll hop on Twitter for just a minute”. No, you won’t. Put away the phone, and put all notifications on silent. While your timer is ticking, focus.

Once your timer is up, take a short 5–15 minute break to get some air before diving back in.

Prioritize

We tend to have all sorts of projects, be it short-term, long-term, personal or work-related. It’s fine to switch between the different types, just be sure to cover your main responsibilities, and then work on extra stuff.

Use Eisenhower’s Principle. Prioritize working on things that are both important and urgent. Then work your way down the line.

Stick it out

Creating a system can be easy, but actually sticking to it is hard. You’ll never finish anything if you wait for some magical inspiration to hit you.

This is why you have to learn to overcome resistance. Don’t worry about your first draft being absolutely perfect. Stop procrastinating. Instead, focus on the first step you can take.

And just do your work.

Jaiela London

Written by

I’m an entrepreneur who co-founded and herbal body product business, self-taught programmer, reader, Discover Praxis participant, and nature lover.

On Breaking the Mold

Where unconventional paths in entrepreneurship, personal development, and education meet. Learn more at discoverpraxis.com

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