What to do if our primary tool is not really helping us? I argue that this is the case with our to-do lists. I’ll talk about why and what you can do about it.
To Do Busy Right, we are fighting three enemies: interruption, multitasking, and distraction. Distraction is the most difficult to defeat. To-do list is another tactic to deploy in that fight.
Everybody knows about to-do lists; most everybody uses them. In my experience, they are by far the most common tool.
But we don’t do detail on them; we don’t have a vetted process. You don't hear about doing them, right? But you don't hear about them in the same way you don't hear about toothbrushes, because it's taken for granted.
I think that you need to have a list. It’s good to get things out of your head. But there are better and worse ways. Somehow, there's got to be something where I have my tasks written out. I think implementation of this can vary a lot.
The problem that a to-do list should solve…
Cal – not a quote, but from A World Without Email - [We] try to pick this ‘congealed mass’ of expectations, tasks, and commitments apart.
We do this because we want to figure out what to DO.
General steps for creating a To-do list
Part 1 What goes on the list
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Normal ways to generate the list: 1) make it up from scratch daily or 2) collect it from various places.
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Make it up from scratch
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From scratch – Q: what’s the problem? A: it’s a bad question for our brains
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The first part gives us brainstorming – “what COULD I do today?”
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The second part gives us urgency (only)
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Priority is always situational, contextual, and relative.
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Collect the things from multiple places
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This usually means a lack of a clear, repeatable process
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It's easy to forget the odd places – everything needs to go to one place.
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The challenge of multiple places – sub-prioritizing by source – pick and choose and leave everything else there then everything downstream is ‘filtered’
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BTW, if you’re not sure you have a good process, take a look at Attention Compass.
Part 2 Where to put the resulting things
Now, you’ve created your list; you need to record the result of that work
Two general ways to do this – on calendar or on paper
The first way - On paper
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Sorting the list (and re-sorting) is bad. Sorting is a hard exercise for your brain
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If you don't believe me, take the sorting challenge
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With the list, you’re putting your brain into a sorting situation – minimize the number of times you have to do this.
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“On the same piece of paper” is a category – but it ignores context
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What do we do when we don’t finish our paper list?
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Often we set that piece of paper aside for in the morning – another place to collect from
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But, are yesterday’s priorities automatically today’s?
The second way - In your calendar
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The calendar is a bad place, no better (really) than paper It's: too fragile, 'must begin at', and has no sense of probability.
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If we either run short or run long, then the Calendar tool begins to show its weaknesses - fragility
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When I say ‘fragile’ I mean it ‘shatters’…
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A list is a static, steady state tool - What to do with “pop-up” priorities?
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The assumption when we make the to do list is, well, if nothing else pops up, this is my plan – how’s that working for you?
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Regardless of what you say, you have to deal with some people’s emergencies
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Ideally, we would have less fragility
Bottom line – with creating a to-do list, we set all kinds of brain challenges (the bad question, multiple collection areas) Our medium (paper or calendar) also presents challenges. We have a bad process.
Instead of 'to-do list' think “backlog”
What’s a backlog?
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Definition
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It's in one place.
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It is continuously sorted
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It is never complete
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It is fluid, so less fragile
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Why a backlog cannot be on paper
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A proper backlog takes care of this for us. It’s built into the AC backlog and processes
What a backlog does for us
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Processing takes care of the sorting
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Deals with fragility
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The “next thing I need to do” is already in the backlog
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Daily review takes care of the overnights and the calendar
If you want to solve these problems once and for all, let me know. My clients have pre-decided, recorded those decisions, and they follow that. They think "I’m going to flexibly pursue the highest priority items in my backlog while attending to my calendar and 'pop-up' priorities." They can do this calmly with minimum hassle. They use a backlog.
What did we accomplish in this episode?
So when we’re fighting distraction, we’re using a rusty sword (to-do list). If we fix it (move to a backlog) we’re using an upgraded weapon in the fight to Do Busy Right
