10 Tips to Rock your To-Do Lists
When managing a team or a product, you get a constant influx of stuff to do and ideas to explore. Surfing this wave requires sharp productivity skills. I’m fond of productivity because it unlocks personal empowerment by freeing up your mind. I don’t see it as cramming as much as possible into your day. It’s rather about getting things out of the way — to make time for what matters to you (work or personal).
After our communication tips, let’s now focus on the art of getting things done. Here’s a combination of personal stuff and principles from books on the topic (hello, David Allen!). Most tips revolve around To-Do lists management. To-Do lists are core for professional and personal productivity. They reduce mental burden and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Let’s get started, and don’t forget that no principles are one-size-fits-all.
1. The least friction principle
Overtime, I tried many different supports for my lists. Moleskine for consulting. VSCode when I shipped code for a living. Evernote, at some point. Trello, when we used it a previous company. Then, Notion ever since I discovered it. The best tool is always the one with the least access friction. Since I constantly use Notion at work, my list is only 1 click away. It’s also why I put my personal list on the same page (private page in the company Notion). This way I don’t have to switch accounts when logging a personal item (= less friction).
Recently I also started using Slack’s “save for later” feature. It’s a welcome buffer between immediate and planned actions (respond now in Slack vs log for later in Notion).
2. Pre-filter with Eisenhower
Before anything makes it to my list, I apply the importance / urgence matrix from Eisenhower. This is particularly helpful for managers. We constantly have to prioritise and we’re in a position to delegate stuff to our team. If you don’t have direct reports, try with your peers instead.
3. Own a tasks graveyard
I like to refine the above matrix with a tasks graveyard. I use this for stuff that has been sitting in my To-Do for ages without any progress. Instead of deleting the task, I put it in a hidden graveyard (a toggle list in Notion). When I’ve got time on my hands, I can look at it for inspiration. This blog article is straight back from the grave, for example.
4. The 5 minutes / Touch only once rules
Sometimes the task is small and it takes less time doing it now than logging it for later. It’s the “5 minutes rule”: if it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now. Balance wisely against context-switching costs.
Closely related is the “Touch only once rule”. There is some WIP burden just not worth thinking about. The typical example is a paper invoice in the mailbox. If you’re not gonna pay the invoice now, don’t open the envelope. Otherwise you will open it, put the invoice on a table, look at it every time you pass by, and be reminded that you owe money. Instead, pay straight after opening the envelope, trash the invoice then move on.
5. Make it contextual
Only give brain space to stuff you can act on right now. It’s useless to check your groceries list while sifting through work actions, for example. Try to silo items by context. I use toggle lists for “At home”, “Out of home”, “Hobby stuff” and other one-off contexts.
6. Keep track of Pending stuff
As managers, we delegate tasks and follow many projects. That’s why I maintain a “Pending” section in my lists to keep track of “who owes me what”. It also helps me see all the projects I’m more or less involved in, to ask for updates when it’s been a long time. One can see this as double-entry bookkeeping for others’ To-Do’s. This is valuable when you delegate and remain the one accountable for something to be done.
7. When it’s done, it’s out
It’s tempting to keep items in your list after they’re done (either struck through or in a dedicated section). My bold take on this: done stuff doesn’t deserve brain space. Glancing at it is a loss of time and will trigger useless reloading of the associated context. When it’s done, delete it. Zero regrets. Exceptions apply for productivity streaks and inbox zero sessions — when it’s cool to see all the work done at once.
8. Move from To-Do’s to meeting notes
Managerial work involves passing messages across stakeholders. I’ve seen that many of my To-Do items were of the form of “Tell X about project A”. This clogged up my lists big time. Instead, I now log this in the note for the next meeting with X. This also enables more asynchronous work (and shorter meetings, how cool is that?).
9. Prefer back-to-back meetings
Stepping away from To-Do’s now, with a quick tip about planning. Try to group meetings as much as possible over the day. Avoid the curse of the free 20 minutes between meetings. Because of context switching, interstitial time is rarely productive time. In return, you’ll free up time for deep work elsewhere in the day.
10. Look at your Calendar the other way
Finally, here’s a tip that rocked my perspective on time management. Don’t look at free Calendar slots as opportunities to squeeze in more meetings. Instead, look at booked time, and consider it a debt ledger of time spent in meetings, not doing deep work. You owe it to yourself to make free time. Heavy nuances of course apply for coordination-rich work. Nonetheless, applying this principle to ourselves makes us more mindful of others’ time.
I hope you enjoyed (re)discovering these tips. Some might already be second nature to you. Others might trigger new ideas. If you’re into productivity and shipping great user value with nice folks, come and join the team at Yousign!
