Creating task lists can give you an immediate sense of control and productivity.
However, if you have been using them for a while, you may also feel how stressful and overwhelming they can become: instead of shrinking, these lists usually only get longer and longer, no matter how fast you knock your tasks down. What to do?
Every now and then I think about abandoning my task lists altogether. I miss the feeling of freedom I once had when I didn’t use them. But then I must concede that they really help manage my life, and I end up deciding to keep using them.
Luckily, a while ago I came across the idea of ‘will-do’ lists. It’s a great concept from the book Do It Tomorrow by Mark Forster, and it was exactly what I needed to resolve my task management dilemma.
What’s Wrong With Task Lists?
Especially if you use a productivity system such as Getting Things Done (GTD), your task list is meant to be an inventory of all your current pending tasks. More often than not, that means that you’ll have many more tasks in it than you can possibly imagine doing in the foreseeable future.
Your master task list ends up working as a “task menu”: like candies in a delicatessen shelf, the tasks just sit there waiting to be picked as soon as you have the chance. This idea is seducing, and I guess that there’s nothing particularly wrong or stressful about it — if you keep the right frame of mind, that is…
As this master to-do list gets increasingly larger, something goes wrong: instead of that pleasant sight of the delicatessen, I start seeing the list as a giant blob of threatening commitments. There is just too much to do. External demands keep piling up in this list much faster than I can handle them, and I feel like I lost control.
Even knowing that the original purpose of the list was to serve just as an inventory, I feel burnt out. Using a ‘Someday/Maybe’ list helps, but the fact is that just the active tasks alone seem unbearably overwhelming.
Things only go downhill from there.
I get anxious to get rid of tasks: my ‘to-do list management’ suddenly becomes just a race between adding items and crossing off old ones. I subconsciously start tackling the easy items in an attempt to shrink the list. The most important and challenging tasks — exactly those that make us move forward in our lives — are left behind.
It’s the GTD busyness trap: despite the amount of items you cross off from your list, you never have that feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day.
Don’t get me wrong: the GTD-style task list is very useful — but mostly as an inventory of open loops. It gives you the reassurance that nothing has been left behind, but it is way too open to external factors to be used all the time — it seems that the more you do to cut the list down, the more it grows. How’s that for motivation?
Enter the Will-Do List
To overcome the shortcomings of the traditional task list, consider creating a will-do list instead.
Take your to-do list and pick a few tasks that you will do the next day: not tasks that you want to do, or tasks that you think you might do — but tasks that you wholeheartedly commit to do. Replace your long list of intentions with a short list of commitments.
There are two important principles to keep in mind about this new list:
1. It’s a list of commitments
Your goal should be to complete 100% of your daily will-do list, every day. Remember that these tasks are commitments: if you’re not serious about crossing off each and every item from your will-do list, there’s no point in creating one. Therefore, you need to be extremely careful in putting just a few items there: when in doubt, be conservative.
(I usually don’t book more than 2 hours’ worth of daily will-do tasks, or I am unable to sustain the 100% completion rate for too long. I also usually tackle my daily will-do list as soon as I can, using highly-focused time boxes.)
2. Once set, don’t add any more items to it
The will-do list is intended to be a closed list: once created, don’t add anything to it during the day.
That means that the only possible thing that can happen to your list is that it will get smaller. And that is the big trick: your list is not a moving target, but a finite and measurable workload that you can actually finish. That is much better for your motivation than the sight of endless to-do lists. Can you still remember the feeling of crossing off the very last item of your task list?
Of course, you should still add items to your master task list as usual. But unless the new items are extremely urgent (and they usually aren’t), you must avoid as much as possible adding them to today’s will-do list.
Extra Benefits
After using will-do lists for several months, I found them to be powerful in yet more ways than I initially expected:
- You do the things that really matter: By choosing beforehand what tasks you’ll definitely do in the coming day, you’re much more likely to choose tasks that matter. By leaving the decisions to be made in the heat of the moment, we end up tackling easy tasks, or those that seem urgent, but are not really important.
- You develop your estimation skills: Knowing that we need to finish 100% of our daily list — and nothing less — helps dampen our overly optimistic expectations. The fact is that we cram too much stuff in our lives: the will-do list puts us back in perspective in understanding what our limits are.
- You have an objective metric of accomplishment: Completing the will-do list is a great goal we can use on a daily basis. It’s a simple, easy to track metric; and it conveys a powerful message: that we are consistently keeping our promises to ourselves. I found that this feeling is essential for my inner peace. As a suggestion, try to keep track of how many days in a row you are able to keep up with your daily will-do lists, as in Jerry Seinfeld’s “task chain” tip.
Get the Full Scoop
This article is intended to be a quick intro to will-do lists. Mark Forster does an excellent job presenting the concept much more thoroughly (as well as the much broader concept of closed lists) in his book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management — highly recommended! What I really like about Mark is that he always makes it clear that he’s just one of us — someone exploring and learning from his own mistakes; and not a self-proclaimed ‘productivity guru’ that pretends to have all the answers.
Will-do lists, when used alone or on top of Getting Things Done, can give you back the sense of control you once had, without foregoing the benefits of regular task lists.
If you already use a similar concept to manage your tasks, or are just trying will-do lists for the first time, please share your experiences in the comments!
I’m glad that you plan to have more collaborative projects here. I took part in the...
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I read your post with a lot of interest mainly because I wrote an article about a “Want to Do List”. My idea, which I use daily now, is to change the tasks from a sort of “I have to do ” mentality which means your “To Do List ” is driven by someone else’s agenda, no your own. I suggested that it would be better to do task “You” wanted to do. Now you have suggested another twist with a “will do” list. Very interesting. Now I wonder how to fuse them together?
Let me think on that.
Thanks for a very stimulating article.
Nick
That’s a nice way of putting it. With commitments, there is this sense of urgency in the task. You won’t put commitments off too easily. I just bought a cork board for my room and am looking forward to sticking all sorts of lists on it. Maybe I can just compile them into one big will-do list.
Jen: Thanks for the comment. Just a word of caution: beware the word ‘big’ in “Maybe I can just compile them into one big will-do list”. For the will-do list to work it must be small enough to be completed in a day. If the list sits there and items are carried-over from day to day, you’ll be in ‘to-do list mode’ again.
Nick: I couldn’t find the article you mention in your website. Can you please provide a link?
You’re right: regardless of using ‘to-do’ or ‘will-do’ lists, the first step is to want to do the tasks. For my take on this subject, take a look at ‘Beat Procrastination by Getting Rid of Your ‘Have To’s‘.
Luciano, you’ve put into words something that had been bouncing around in my head for a while now, but I couldn’t quite spit out - thanks!
Also, the excellent Things taskware for macs has the Will Do list implemented as their Today list.
http://blog.renewlab.com/2008/02/today-list.html
Great post! I’ve used GTD for a while and the initial sense of order and completeness from getting things out of mind and into a system rapidly turns into a nightmare.
I have a complex role which demands a lot of flexibility. Getting back on the GTD wagon every time I fall off creates to-do lists which are huge, guilt-inducing and haunting. No wonder they lead to demotivation.
I’ve recently been working with a small text file of this day’s tasks, which are similar to your will-do’s. Thanks for the encouragement.
You need a master list under which all lists are attached. Here’s how it works: start at the top and work down. You either have to do or schedule-to-do everything under one heading before moving to the next. Easy!
Here’s my list. Try and make your own.
1. Attend to Immediate Danger
2. Defeat Ill Health
3. Seek Inner Peace
4. Defeat Worry
5. Seek Freedom
6. Seek Joy
7. Seek Knowledge
8. Defeat Injustice
Luciano, I feel that this is a bit of confusing the “finger pointing to the moon” with the “moon itself”. Let me explain better: the motivation should come from the process not from the result. So - if your motivation comes from completing tasks you’ll never be satisfied unless you are too modest. Motivation related to GTD comes, in my opinion, from having a system that allows things to keep flowing instead of static accounting of goals accomplished. That’s my 5 cents.
Fier: I think you are slightly missing Luciano’s point, he’s not saying: “GTD sucks - use this system instead”. He’s saying here’s an additional layer to the GTD master list that helps make it flow better. The aim of GTD is basically to capture everything once, so you don’t have to keep anything in your head, and you don’t end up thinking things through twice. All fine except that the end result of GTD is a huge list of stuff to do, which you are supposed to look at and intuit what to do next (based on your context). The flaw with this is that even with contextual filtering it can still be overwhelming and cause you to have to think hard what to do next each time you finish a task. So the beauty of the extra DIT layer is that you batch up your “what am I going to do today” thinking at the start of the day. You can then just focus on working through this do-able list, without having to wonder what to do next again.
And whether you are pointing at the moon or designing a spaceship it’s still a nice feeling to get to the end of the day and think - yeay I finished everything on my Will-Do list, and they were all the most important things to do today. Now I can go home, switch off and have a well earned beer.
Thank you guys for this great discussion!
Andy: I couldn’t agree more with you. Thanks for jumping in and expressing these ideas in such a clear manner — I hadn’t been able to find the right words so far.
Fier: Andy pretty much said it all; but let me add just a couple of points:
I agree that a big part of the satisfaction from GTD comes from the flow of tasks. Maybe that’s why I enjoy will-do lists: creating them helps me selecting the most important tasks to do, helping my life flow (instead of keeping me busy on the less important).
Also, yes, we shouldn’t rely solely on crossing off items from a list to get motivated, but why not add an extra layer of motivation? I think that every little bit helps.
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing - that’s why we recommend it daily”.
Zig Ziglar
I’m terrible with my todo lists. Even my will do list would probably end up a complete and utter mess. I need serious help!
One thing that works is having a one-item will-do list. See if you can can handle that. When you feel confident enough, move on to a two-item list, and so on…
I have to disagree with some of the comments and the author that GTD creates huge to-do lists. The GTD system, from what I’ve learned and applied, actually tells you not to create the conventional to-do lists that people are talking about. The point of making lists (not the typical to-do kind) is only to help you separate the junk from the jewels because when they’re stuck in your mind, they’re given the same priority.
I believe that the “process” stage of GTD is where people get mixed up. The whole point of processing your thoughts (or “stuff) is to make intelligent and thoughtful choices about what you should do next. If you’re only thinking about the next actions, without giving proper thought to what those next actions truly entail, you’re only recreating the classic to-do list packaged as “next-actions.”
I’m not going to get into the finer details of the book as this is not the time nor the venue. However, as a person who cursed David Allen for all of 2005-6, precisely because I felt that I was only making bigger, non-manageable to-do lists, I suggest you go back and pay more attention to the second half of the book. I, like most people, got so excited after learning about the core structure of the system, I completely tuned out the finer points which deal with what not to do when creating next-actions. In order to use GTD effectively, you have to understand your limits and create the lists accordingly (like the no-energy list). The whole point is to regain some of the senses that became numb due to years of getting beat up by all encompassing to-do lists.
I also think that GTD (the book) is not very well-written in that it over-stresses the system itself while gliding over the points that really make the system hum (as do so many bloggers on lifehack and others). There are a lot of what appears to be throw away lines that are the meat of the book.
I’m not saying that the will-do list or this article is poor in any way. I just felt that the will-do list is implied in GTD.
ps. I feel like Abe Simpson for writing all those letters and words up there just to express my sentiments on the last paragraph. Well, I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time……
nunchucks: Thanks for your thorough comment.
I will definitely take a look at the book again. It seems that every time I read it, I learn a new nuance of the system. Many “holes” I found in GTD were in fact because I misunderstood parts of the book. And yes, looking at them now, it’s clear that the book could have emphasized them a little more.
Thanks for the advice!
I wonder if it wouldn’t be simple to take the next steps and instead of using a list of “will-do” to simply transform that list into the next day’s schedule.
In other words, to ensure that there is enough time to get the “will do items done, simply dispense with the list and work with it as a schedule.
This will make the fact of scheduling more explicit, and easier to manage either on paper, or electronically, rather than leaving it to a mental estimation.
I have consistently found that this is easier to manage, and a more reliable way to ensure that what I want to get done in a day, actually gets done.
If for example, someone calls with tickets to the movies starting at 5pm, I simply glance at my schedule before making a decision. This is much easier than looking at my lists, and trying to make a much more risky decision, with less data at my fingertips.
This is just one example, and benefit, but I could go on to others.
Francis: Thanks for outlining your thoughts.
You’re right. Scheduling, when done correctly, gives a much better view of the workload you can tackle in a day. So maybe it is the ideal solution indeed. However, I think it’s hard for many people to reliably schedule their days, either due to the nature of their workdays, or simply due to poor scheduling skills (which is my case).
By the way, it’s probably because of my poor estimation skills that I also keep my ‘Will-Do’ list very small, requiring only very rough estimates on my part.
I had to go with a giant whiteboard to put things in perspective and in relation to each other. And essentially it told me what should happen and in what order.
Interesting… that gives me some insight into how people view schedules.
I agree with you, and at the same time they would only be more reliable if they were to schedule it in on paper,rather than in their heads.
When they make up their Will-Do list, they do a quick mental scan of the items that they remember for the next day. These might include:
= the 2pm meeting with the boss
= the 30 minute preparation they need to do for the meeting
= the items they did not complete on the prior day
= their need to watch Oprah’s program at 4pm
They make their will-do list with all this in mind, but it’s easier to do well when they take it out of their minds, and put it on paper.
In a way, a schedule is just a Will-Do list with times attached.
People get into trouble when they see a schedule as something that brings them built when they are unable to keep to it. Instead, they are better off using it as a planning guide than anything else.
Building skills in Scheduling is something I talk about in the new manifesto at http://Changethis.com/45.04.NewTime
Hi Francis, thank again for your insights.
Yes, one large portion of why schedules sometimes get a bad reputation is not because they don’t work, but because of the feelings we needlessly attach to them. Guilt is the most common. If we have these bad feelings, we end up quitting long before we acquire the necessary skills to sow the benefits of scheduling.
Thank you for the link to the manifest. Good job there; in a first look it seems to have very valuable information in it. I’ll certainly read it — thanks!
Hello,
For implementing GTD you might try out my application for time management and productivity,
http://www.gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Hope you like it.
Luciano,
I’ve been struggling lately with productivity. My goals seems to have turned into taskmasters rather than faithful servants.
I like the example of will-do lists. I think it’s best to keep perspective on what’s most important, and you idea seems to do that effectively.
Jonathan
What works for me is to have multiple list based on location. The locations are:
1. Kitchen - the centre of gravity of most homes
2. Work office
3. Home office
4. Car
The lists seem more manageable and it means I’m in the environment where I can actually perform the task.
Brisbane SEO Consultant: Separating tasks by context is indeed a very smart approach to trimming down lists.
Unfortunately, for me and many other people, the vast majority of tasks are done in a single context. Looking at my @Computer list doesn’t help much with my feeling of overwhelm.
Great Discussion. I found this article very informative and at the same time motivational. As a virtual assistant, i do have a seemingly endless lists of to do’s daily. And honestly it gets too overwhelming that at somepoint I just wanted to stop. I liked how you reiterated doing things “wholeheartedly”. I guess that makes a big difference.
Now I am seeking different tools to organize my life. Just want to share I also found this great online tool for goal setting that might help: http://www.impactfulactions.com.
I think that the original article (which is a nice read otherwise) and the comments completely miss the crucial point of Mark Forster’s book:
It’s the balance between incoming and outgoing work. The book is called “Do it Tomorrow” (DIT) for a reason. You’re supposed to put all today’s incoming work on tomorrow’s ‘will-do’ list and keep up with those ‘will-do’ lists (on average). If you can’t, you’re supposed to analyze the reasons why: Working inefficiently? Too little time? Too much work? And then you have to correct the reasons, which for the latter reason (too much work) means to cut down your commitments. That’s the real ‘objective metric of accomplishment’ in DIT. And that’s exactly what GTD doesn’t have. Oh, and it’s much simpler that scheduling your day ‘to death’.
Alex: Hmmm.. I haven’t read the book, but is there an implicit assumption that incoming items should fit into tomorrow’s 8 hour day?
I may not be understanding your comment…
Alex: Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
I agree with you; I also think that the relationship between input and output is the main point in Mark’s book. My original intention with the article was not to be thorough, however — thinking in retrospect — I should indeed have made that point in the article.
In fact, the in/out flow of tasks is such an important topic that I think it deserves a full article to itself. Thanks for pointing it out!
Francis: Yes. In average, you should get no more than one day worth of work in your inbox each day. Otherwise, you’ll be getting into an ever-growing backlog of tasks. That’s the main point in Mark’s book Do It Tomorrow.
Hope it makes sense.
That makes me think that I should read the book as I can’t see the correlation between a given day of email and the next day’s schedule…
Francis, the key word here is average. What I recommend in “Do It Tomorrow” is that the incoming work each day should be put off to the following day (except for stuff that really needs to be done the same day).
So in an ideal world all the work coming in on one day would either be done the same day (if urgent) or done the following day (the default).
You will see by what I have said that the Will Do list is not a selection but a collection. You do not attempt to select or prioritise it (other than the today/tomorrow urgency)
Of course in the real world the amount of work that comes in each day is going to vary from day to day, and the amount of time you have to complete it is going to vary too. However the amount of work you complete each day must equal the amount of incoming work ON AVERAGE - otherwise you are going to fall behind.
What I recommend in the book is that you aim to complete the Will Do list each day, but don’t get too worried if some items get carried over to the next day. However if you fail to catch up (i.e. complete ALL the due items) after a fairly short period (4 days or so) then you should analyze why in the way Alex has summarised, and do something about it.
It’s great to have you here, Mark! I really appreciate your thoughtful comment.
The point you make about failing to catch up after a short period of time is key.
When I started using will-do lists, I tried way too hard to achieve 100% completeness, every day. I was set for failure from the start. Then, to avoid the recurrent feeling of failure, I became too conservative and put too few items on my lists.
Now I know both approaches are ineffective — and your comment makes this clear for other readers.
You should still aim for 100%, yes, but on a larger horizon of analysis. A week works great for me as such time frame (as I can use part of my weekly review to analyze my will-do lists and take action).
Mark - This resonates with me. After all, work “coming in” only turns into work because I make a decision that turns a prompt of some kind (e.g. email) into an actual demand on my time.
When I make too many commitments to get things done today, I guarantee my failure. The same applies to commitments that I make for tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
In my experience, the best way I have found is to use a schedule, as whenever I tried to use a list in isolation, I discovered that it didn’t have enough information to make it useful (e.g. such as its duration.)
It sounds as if you are attacking the false urgency created by “now” and “at once’ and encouraging users to tap into the time they have ahead of them in the following day, week, month, year, etc.
Am I on track here?
Francis
Yes, you’re pretty well on track!
One point I like to emphasize is that work doesn’t appear from nowhere. It comes from the commitments that we have entered into.
Therefore if we find that we are unable to keep up with our work, we need to audit our commitments. It’s at this level that work should be prioritized, not at the task level. And when prioritizing our commitments, there’s basically only one question: “Should I be doing this at all?”