Why To Do Lists Don’t Work
In your quest to better find organization in your life, you may have fallen to the trap of using to do lists. To do lists are personal notes of your daily tasks which you try to accomplish every day. Every working professional probably had at least one in their entire life. At first, it might feel like a good decision. You feel like you’re doing a great step sorting your life.
It may even give you the feeling that you have everything in order. Eventually you’ll arrive to the point where you’ll practically hate your to-do list. It becomes a list of disappointment, something which you will have to carry, rewrite, and try and do again every single day. Writing down your tasks may make you feel like you’ve got everything in order. But creating an overloaded list will not keep you organized – just cranky. After a few days, you will feel exasperated. You’d be forced to stop, and back again to being chaotic, messy and unproductive like before.
1. Too Many Tasks
You listed 62 tasks and just looking at it makes you feel stressed. Too many tasks will overwhelm your brain and paralyze you. According to a recent research, the human brain can handle just about seven options before it finds everything complex. When the brain is presented with a lot of options, it finds choosing or even going over the choices exasperating.
2. Lack of Flexibility
Putting a time slot for every of your task can give you the feeling that you have your day in control. For every task you set a 30 minute deadline, with a specific time slot in the day. This isn’t only tiring; it also creates opportunities for you to procrastinate.
3. Commitment Problems
You do have goals. You are also often motivated to do them, but sometimes you lack the will to keep doing them. Maybe you just find it dull to keep on rewriting those tasks you have missed the other day. Or maybe it’s causing you a lot of guilt just looking at your to-do-list and knowing how unproductive you were yesterday. Some people cannot thrive in a rule-driven environment. They prefer a more laidback, and relaxed system to accomplish more tasks and be productive.
4. Lack of Prioritization
Most to-do lists don’t work because they lack effective prioritization. When you have a lot of urgent tasks, it may be quite challenging to focus on which ones to do first. But taking even just a few minutes to analyze your tasks can help clear up confusion and make you work effectively.
5. You Don’t Review
If you made your to-do list for the purpose of time management, it has to be part of your daily review. Find a time everyday where you can sit down and be alone. This is also a good time to make adjustments, and find what problems may be surfacing and why you can’t seem to do your work.
Making your to-do lists work requires a copious amount of self-discipline and motivation. Without those two, you’d fail miserably at managing your work. Now that you know the problem of your to-do list, it’s time to make the necessary changes and get things done.
