|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…
|
To-do lists are difficult as I am a now or never kind of person. Don’t tell me about doing things unless it’s right now or at least for today. I know there is always tomorrow. One hopes. But we can talk then about what to do — then.
Unfinished business like to-do lists makes me nervous. Anxious. That’s what it is. I don’t like stopping until something is done, or sitting on things forever. I like to finish and move on.
To-do lists, by definition, are unfinished businesses. What is a list if it isn’t to delay. Delay acting on things.
It’s a delay because instead of just doing it you are noting that you will do it. It’s a plan. Not an execution.
Oh, I’ll forget.
If it’s that important do it right now. Today. While it’s on your mind and if it’s important why would you forget? If it’s forgettable it’s not important.
It’s the same with calendars. I don’t really keep one. Say for example the day I defended my Ph.D. oral exam. Do you think I needed a fricking calendar to tell me what day that was? It’s totally unnecessary.
I don’t need calendars to remind me of people’s birthdays and things like that. I remember them. The people that matter know that I know their birthdays and consistently remember them. It’s not that bad.
There are ways to remember things. Such as, making a connection with the information you want to remember and then remembering the connection. For example, if someone tells you their birthday and it happens to also be the birthday of another person you know or a number or a combination of numbers that mean something else to you. That sort of thing. Practice certainly helps.
If it’s important you will remember and you will prioritize. If you don’t know how to prioritize this is a great way to learn. For example, say you have a super important meeting on the 30th, you could just remember that. If you prioritize it you won’t schedule anything during that meeting and you will make it. If something more important comes up you will have to skip the meeting. You will miss it but that’s because something more important came up. Which is fine.
Coming back to to-do lists. If it’s important to do it, do it now. If it’s not, don’t waste time on it. Making a list just means to delay and in that case, figure out why you want to delay. What’s up with that?
If the answer is to procrastinate, that is a totally OK response – the part about needing to procrastinate. But surely there are more fun things you can do to procrastinate than making to-do lists?
Give yourself permission to actually goof off while keeping important tasks at the back of your mind. That way you will be more creative.
Take a nap, watch TV, do a DIFFERENT important task than the one you currently feel like avoiding, call your mom, clean the litter box, seriously, the sky is the limit.. when it comes to procrastination.
ALL creative people procrastinate, you should feel no guilt about it.
Lists just make it seem like there is a lot to do and a lot of choices. When things are important there should not be a lot of choices. You do them because they are important to do.
To-do lists are also so boring and uncreative. It’s like me ordering future me to follow orders and do exactly those things and not deviate.
Never deviating from a to-do list means there is no room to screw up but also no room to improvise and do better!
In that respect, to-do lists are just the WORST when it comes to being creative.
Now, in order to be both creative AND productive, certain types of lists may be allowed.
I’d say make a to-do list to keep things organized only if you are going to do it that SAME day. That is, all of the things on the list happens that same day of making the list. I do that sometimes when I feel like there is an overwhelming number of things to accomplish in one day.
The idea is to break it down to solid, small steps that you can accomplish to make progress with a bigger goal. Or maybe there are just a bunch of small things you have to do and then you are done. In that case, it is worth organizing yourself into getting them all done that day.
This kind of list is OK to make because it helps you to stay productive. But I don’t make such lists every day. Most days, I make zero lists.
I also suggest making a very short list to help you start the next day if you are fighting demoralization:
Lastly, I think it is very important to take notes during meetings or in general, to write things down for you to pick up on later. But scribbling down reminders or ideas to efficiently do work is one thing and writing structured, mechanical to-do lists is another.
Rough notes are good for productivity and creativity, whereas to-do lists are not, in my opinion. Basically, I am encouraging leaving yourself room to constantly improvise while also getting stuff DONE.
My biggest problem with to-do lists is that they are anxiety-inducing machines. They symbolize unproductivity and incompleteness. I hate both. And both make me anxious.
I’d rather have a terrible DRAFT of a paper done and call it a DRAFT forever than put down on some to-do list that I need to write the paper.
Drafts are great, by the way. You can always improve them. You know you have started, so the biggest hurdle has been overcome already. Of course, there will come the day when you will need to for real finish and submit the DRAFT, aka final draft, but until then, it’s easy peasy to just keep editing or adding to a draft.
Now I have nothing against having goals that are more than a day long. Like getting a Ph.D.
But again big picture goals like that are not things that need to go in a to-do list. You know them, you remember them.
Making a list of them would be to remind yourself that the goal has not been accomplished yet.
Which can be very anxiety-inducing! So avoid that.
It’s good to have long-term goals but they should never go in a list.
If they are important enough to you, you will fulfill all the short-term requirements to complete the long-term goal. No need to make a list of the long-term goal.
Because actively thinking about or remembering how a long-term goal is yet unfulfilled is also against productivity. It makes you anxious but does not help you to get it done any quicker.
Sometimes, with long-term goals, it is more productive to actually kind of forget that you have them. Or, push them to the back of your mind. So that you can concentrate on what needs to be done NOW.
No need to remind yourself of things you haven’t finished that you can’t possibly finish in a short time.
Such as not having a Ph.D. That’s a long-term goal.
Or making money from a blog. Also a very long-term goal.
But long-term goals shouldn’t keep you from doing the short-term things that will eventually lead you to fulfill those goals. And more than VERY short-term to-do lists will hurt the prospects of accomplishing them rather than help.
By the by, folks who are way better known than me have pointed out things along the same lines:
Adam Grant – He talks about how creative people procrastinate:
My main motivation for avoiding to-do lists is mental health. I think to-do lists are bad for mental health and bad, in general, for creativity and productivity, the lack of which, in turn, hurts mental health.
As always, your comments really help me and other readers, please do share them below.
Until next time, take care and goof off without guilt and without list while having important things at the back of your mind 🙂
You might also like:
Leave a Reply