I actively avoided using any form of todo list for about the past year or so until just a couple weeks ago. The problem I kept running in to is that every time i started a to do list it would immediately grow overwhelmingly large. At that point things start falling off the end of the list - some things lose their relevence and others just don’t matter anymore. Should “send a birthday card to an old friend” become “send a belated birthday card” or just get scratched out (not crossed off like those good tasks that got done but scribbled on until it’s illegible so you can’t be reminded how calous you could’ve been)?
Jeff and I were chatting about this just now and I realized that this is a subject that I’ve really built some strong feelings about. My latest return to the todo is in the form of another ugly text file called “big todo.txt” wherein I’ve resigned to note things I have to do or want to get done but i can’t hold myself accountable for the results or expect their won’t be overlap, discontinuity or redundancy.
I’ve thought a lot about this and my fundamental belief is this: the creation of a todo list implies that we expect ourselves to be able to complete all of these items. There is no guard to prevent me from putting any thing at all on the list. I could say:
- clean hall closet
- do laundry
- cure cancer
- wash car
- buy groveries
I think the key to success here is not to expect success. Take what you can get and don’t beat yourself up when something sits on the todo for too long. Allow yourself a do-over. Don’t set yourself up to beat yourself up. How else can I say this in a more clichéd way? The list is there to remind you: when it reminds you of something you can’t do just ignore it like your mom nagging you to take out the trash. Those things you couldn’t get done aren’t going to get reversed and you’re not going to make things better by doting on what you should’ve done. If the time is passed then it must have been filled. Enjoy the results of doing something that was more important or enjoy the memories of doing something that was more compelling but don’t waste your time regretting what’s passed.
Think of your todo list like a credit card where the balance is measured in time. If you had the time to do the job, you’d do it now. If you write something on the list it’s because you don’t have the time to do it now. You’ve borrowed some time from your future self, just as a credit card allows you to borrow money from your future self. At some point you’ve got to pay that time back by doing whatever it was you had to put off. If you don’t look at the cost before you start piling stuff on to that list then you’re bound to have a list that you can’t complete. The cost in time isn’t as clear as a price tag in a store, but the only one that can estimate it is you. The better you get at estimating and the more attention you give to what you allow to go on your list, the better you can do at bringing that time credit back down to zero. If your estimates are off then you’re always going to carry some time debt forward. At some point you have to clear that off either by doing what’s on the list (which may not even be doable) or clearing your list and dealing with the consequences of whatever you didn’t get done (namely: a messy closet, wearing your boxers inside-out, some cancer, a dirty car and a bright fridge). The consequences are the same consequences you had when you put that job on your todo list but now you’ve got to accept them as a fact of life since they’re not something you’re “going to get to soon.”
Thinking in terms of time economy, my “big todo.txt” is bound to fail. What a list like that produces is a huge catalog of things I could do, not a list of things that I really intend to do. Maybe I’ll take my own advice here and only keep track of tasks I really think I can get done. At the same time it’s important to remember that there are many times before that I’ve thought I could get those things on the list done and failure is not the end of me. Failure is just feedback for the next try.
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:24 pm
“The problem I kept running in to is that every time i started a to do list it would immediately grow overwhelmingly large”
This is exactly NOT my problem. The problem with my lists is that they start out somewhat manageable (meaning things could be accomplished in a week or two’s time if nothing else crept onto my plate) but then SLOWLY grow to unmanageability. I wake up and morning and say “WTF?!?”
Your two analogies of a “credit card” and “mom nagging” are good ones and they reflect precisely the problems I’m having. I don’t like having a non-zero balance on my credit card. Even if it’s a legitimate expense and I know I can pay it off soon I still hate having that hanging over my head. That’s why we don’t have any car loans or outstanding balances on credit cards generally speaking, the only debt we have is the mortgage.
And as for my “mom nagging” me - I used to hate it. Even if I said outwardly that I ignored it or brushed it off, I knew deep down that I was disappointing her for not cleaning my room (or whatever). That deep-down knowledge amounts to some form of worry or stress (at least for me).
Which brings me back to my ever-growing TO DO list: The two facts that 1) there are items on that list that I don’t know if I will EVER complete and 2) that I know I’m not meeting my responsibilities on some fronts amounts to an ever-growing pile of stress in my belly and head.
I know it has to do with not biting off more than I can chew and getting better at estimating and this is the essential (and obvious) kernel of truth I’m going to take away from your article and go work on. I’ll put it on my TO DO list.
August 31st, 2006 at 8:54 am
I feel your pain. My task management seems to go in spurts. I eventually get overwhelmed and need to get a task list together. Even if I don’t get it all done, I at least feel at peace that I’ve captured it somewhere.
Lately, I’ve been trying to use this program:
http://www.taskfreak.com/
The best thing to do is to only put very SPECIFIC actionable items on your task list. Make sure they can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, like less than a couple hours.
If you’ve got a big project, break it into small tasks or keep it in a separate list. There are a lot of cool things I would like to do that sometimes end up on my task list. But realistically, I will never get to them. So, capturing the ideas in another place helps. Then it’s not a “task list”, it’s just a list of cool ideas, regardless if you do them or not.
August 31st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
The more I think about it the more I like the catalog of stuff I could do. The important thing is that it doesn’t come with an expectation that I’ll finish everything on the list or any sense of completion just for having made a note. I’ve kept lists of possible ideas for specific projects before, like topics I could possibly add to a web site or choices for activities on vacation. I’ll just expand on that and write down stuff that I could do - independent of stuff that I will do.
I just looked at the demo for TaskFreak and it looks like too much fun not to at least try.