If you’ve been using to-do lists to organize your day’s tasks, you’ve probably experienced a situation where you continuously push the items on your list for the next day until the list becomes impossibly long.
That was my life for as long as I could remember. Every day consisted of the same pattern.
I would write the things I needed to get done the night before and work on them the next day. As I went through the day, new immediate to-do items would pop up, and my focus would be less sharp.
Decreased productivity levels and my tendency to overestimate how much I could get done always led to some leftover to-do items at the end of the day.
These items would be pushed to the next day and added to tomorrow’s already long to-do list. Then the same thing would happen, and I would have leftover to-do items by the end of the next day.
This cycle would continuously repeat, and eventually, I would have to reset and create a brand new to-do list.
Unfortunately, repeating this cycle comes with adverse side effects where the items on my to-do list lose their importance as things to do.
My to-do list cycle was due for a reset when I caught the flu in mid-November.
I became incapable of performing any task, so it was the perfect time for my to-do list to be completely blown up and refreshed.
By the time I recovered from the flu, however, I had realized that I needed a better system for getting things done. My current to-do list wasn’t cutting it.
I took some time to think back to all the productivity books and courses I consumed, looking for ideas to help me get more done.
As I was thinking, I remembered my time watching Jim Kwik’s Super Reading Quest on Mindvalley when he talked about scheduling a time every day dedicated to reading.
Then I thought about my gym habits and what made it easy for me to consistently get up at 6:30 AM every morning and go to the gym.
And while I talked about how a big part of my successful gym routine came from my brother and me accounting for each other in an article I published in October, I had underestimated the effect of mentally dedicating time to the gym and an alarm’s ability to help me get in the zone.
These thoughts led to a theory where scheduling time for each to-do list item and having an alarm/notification system to alert you of the to-do list item would significantly improve my ability to get things done.
And so, I decided to test it out.
Condensed And More Manageable To-Do Lists
The first benefit of scheduling time for each to-do list item came when I started mapping out my days and planning the times for my to-do tasks.
Scheduling time for my to-do list required me to think about how long each activity may take and thoroughly consider what I was doing during various blocks of my day.
This made me much more realistic about what I could get done, instantly making my to-do lists much more manageable.
I quickly learned that I had less time than I thought, which fixed my problem of often overestimating how much I could get done.
Previously, I had issues where I would think, “Oh, I have a whole day to write just three articles? No problem.”
The issue stemmed from my foolishness in assigning the same value to each to-do list item. Thinking that writing one blog post took the same amount of time and energy as doing the laundry was absurd. But it was easy to miss without actively thinking about when I would do each task and how long it would take.
It was also easy to procrastinate with a traditional to-do list because I needed to be fully aware of my time.
It was easy for me to come back from the gym in the morning and tell myself that I would write my blog posts later as I was tired.
Then all of a sudden, it was 3 PM. I had to pick up my brother and train at the badminton center. By the time I was home, it was 9 PM, and I was ready for bed.
Scheduling time for my to-do list items forced me to be much more conscious of my time. It also forced me to be mindful of my energy levels and ability to focus at various times throughout the day, which meant many things I once put on my to-do list no longer made it to the list.
Without doing anything on my to-do list, I had already solved many problems by planning. By scheduling time for each to-do list item, I could prioritize the most important tasks and be very realistic about what I could get done.
How Scheduled Time Blocks Affected My Workday
Planning is excellent, but it’s nothing without doing. Ultimately, I needed to see if my day-to-day workflow improved.
I was thrilled with how scheduled time blocks for to-do list items affected me.
The most significant benefit was that there was no more guesswork. There were no opportunities for me to get tempted into doing something else.
At every moment of the day, I should know what to do. If I didn’t, I would look at my calendar and see what was scheduled.
A key factor is that you must go beyond just writing a time for your to-do list items. A crucial part of my success was scheduling events in my Google Calendar.
Scheduling my to-do items in my Google Calendar allowed me to receive notifications on my phone and laptop, which helped my brain understand what it should be doing and switch focus.
Seeing time blocks also helped me be more productive by working deeper and with more focus.
For example, take a look at what a traditional to-do list looked like for me versus a calendar with scheduled time blocks:
When I used to use traditional to-do lists, I would see the whole list and get distracted by the number of things I needed to do. Either I would waste a lot of time choosing what to do or doing multiple things simultaneously with bad focus.
With the calendar, all I worry about is what time block I’m sitting in. Depending on which time block I’m in, whatever I wrote on the event is the only thing I’m focused on.
Turn Your To-Do Lists Into Scheduled Calendars
Scheduling time blocks for my to-do list items have phenomenally affected my productivity.
It only takes a couple of minutes to sit down and plan your weekly and, in many cases, monthly schedules.
Make sure to leverage software as well and use calendars like Google, Outlook, Apple, or any other similar calendar app to make use of notifications and make it easier to visualize your tasks. These tools also make it easy to add and remove tasks depending on what comes up in your day.
By scheduling time blocks for your to-do list, you will make much more realistic and manageable to-do lists and make it easier to focus by removing energy-draining decisions from trying to figure out what you should be doing.
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