Switch From To-Do Lists to Projects ASAP
Without “projects” linking your goals and daily tasks, you’re wasting your time and potential
We all have goals and projects. Every task is part of a bigger picture. Yet most of us use to-do apps that only focus on specific tasks. Even though we know what long-term goals these tasks help with, it’s not spelled out.
There’s no clear hierarchy of goals, projects, and tasks.
A common issue I see with people trying to “be more productive” is that they end up being busy, not effective. I could write down 10 tasks for tomorrow and check them all off, but they might not make a real difference.
To-do lists and note apps meant to be your “second brain” and help you remember stuff, are pretty useless unless they help you tackle the most important things. Important or impactful tasks are the ones that rocket you towards your goals.
Sure, meditation and exercise help with everything a bit, but if you want to get better at editing videos (goal), you need to spend serious time on video editing-related stuff.
So how do you figure out what’s most important? By prioritizing everything.
Prioritization is crucial
There are countless things worth doing, but it’s impossible to
- Do them all and
- Have them all be equally impactful for you.
This applies not just to long-term goals like “Become a pro editor” or medium-term ones like “Land a paid video editing internship,” but to level up your whole character.
If they’re not all equally impactful, there’s definitely a ranking of what matters most. You need to learn to rank or prioritize everything. It doesn’t just help you move forward faster, but also to not get stuck with too many choices.
Remember: Goals to “projects” to tasks
Let’s assume you know what’s most important to you (your long/medium-term goals). Now, your daily tasks will emerge from these important goals. But the jump will be too big and you might not see how a task connects to the goal.
Here’s the thing: tasks alone don’t give you a sense of progress. They’re small and frequent. A task needs a higher purpose to feel meaningful, but not so high that the connection is unclear. Projects bridge the gap between tasks and long-term goals, preventing tasks from feeling unproductive or disconnected.
Finishing a project is a big deal because it doesn’t happen as often.
A project is a bunch of tasks aimed at achieving a specific goal within a rough (or specific) timeframe. It’s not an ongoing habit. Projects are meant to be completed. They also include notes related to the objective.
Getting your cat vaccinated? That’s a project. It can include research on vets, their prices, and how far away they are. It might involve asking friends for recommendations or actually taking your cat to the vet.
Similarly, the most important things in life can’t be done with just one task. They always generate a group of tasks and take days, weeks, or even months to complete. They always create documents or notes, and it’s a good idea to keep track of those.
Remember, your second brain isn’t doing much if it doesn’t organize your life. It’s supposed to make you efficient.
Why did my productivity system change?
Over time, my planning shifted from writing to-dos to managing projects. This marked my entry into impactful productivity — a system and mindset aimed at making a real difference in life.
Standalone tasks that aren’t part of a bigger project still exist, but they don’t take up much space on my to-do list anymore. Things like meditating, finding and printing a document, filling out a form, or cleaning my laptop.
Daily tasks come from projects, which come from long-term goals. To learn how to set long-term goals, check out cognitive scientist Maya Shankar’s method here.
The sense of progress
The sense of progress you get from projects is really important to keep going. You often feel like you’re doing a lot but not moving forward in life.
You won’t know if you’re doing enough unless you make your projects clear and tick them off after working on them for a while.
It’s crucial to signal to yourself that you’ve worked on something impactful.
The guidelines
There are some guidelines for working with projects. Here are a few to get you started:
Don’t try to juggle more than 3 projects at once.
I split my projects into two categories: Current and Upcoming.
I’ve noticed that in my “Current” projects, at least one spot is usually taken up by a project assigned to me by others, like finishing an assignment. The rest I use for my personal projects.
You don’t need so many projects that you can’t focus on a specific goal. Too many projects pull your attention in different directions, making it hard to focus deeply on one thing (which is important for working efficiently on a project) and slowing down project completion. This takes away your sense of progress and motivation to keep going.
But if you have too few projects, you’ll either only do stuff assigned to you by others (like your boss or professors) or you’ll end up wasting time if you get stuck on a project. You need to be able to switch to a different project when one burns you out.
This number used to be 5 projects for me until Cal Newport changed my mind. He suggests 1–3 projects max to work on currently, emphasizing how the quality of work drops when you have too many projects going at once, and it takes forever to finish anything, preventing that feeling of accomplishment.
Guideline 2 is to work on only one project a day, as suggested by Cal Newport.
Note: This doesn’t include non-project tasks. Of course, you’ll still have to do other tasks that aren’t related to any project.
Multitasking can lead to shallow progress on multiple fronts, but focusing deeply on one project can give you more substantial and meaningful results.
Concentrating on one project also reduces the mental effort required to switch gears, saving brain power and reducing stress and anxiety. The stress and anxiety part is worth noting. Juggling multiple important projects can make you feel overwhelmed and anxious. Focusing on a single project helps manage and reduce these feelings, leading to a more peaceful and controlled work environment.
Finally, the math of this advice leads you to be more effective. You’ll work on fewer projects, but you’ll work better and more on each one. Zeroing in on a single project prevents your efforts from being spread too thin, leading to faster and better work on a project.
Guideline 3 would be to generate notes related to the project.
All the info related to the project goes in the project folder. This organization gives you security and reliability, making you more likely to work.
Most to-do list apps don’t come with a good integration of notes, tasks, and hierarchies, which is why I use Twos. Check out my productivity system using the Twos app and Tiago Forte’s PARA method here.
Guideline 4 is about generating tasks in the project.
No one knows exactly what tasks they’ll need to do for a project, so you can’t predict all the tasks in advance. This creates uncertainty with the project, which is a major cause of procrastination.
You can guess broadly what tasks you might need to get done, and you can also follow the Hemingway method (kind of). After finishing a task in a project, you usually know what the next step is. Think about what it is, and make it a task in the project for the future so that you know what you need to do next.
Conclusion
This info should be enough for you to start experimenting with projects. Why not download Twos or any other app of your choice and shift from a to-do list system to a goals-projects-tasks system?
