Tear Up Your “To Do” Lists!
If you’ve ever felt stressed from being frazzled by your to do lists, listen up. By getting rid of them, you’ll be able to speed through your tasks and get more done in less time. This is because without a list, it’s easy for us humans to get distracted by the many shiny things that life throws our way.
Let’s talk about disruption for a second. It sounds like corporate speak for “unproductive workplace behavior.” But it also accurately describes how your attention gets hijacked when you don’t have a list to keep you on task. What happens is that you start doing one thing and then abruptly switch to another without giving yourself a chance to finish what you started. This habit is practically the definition of distraction! And it’s all because of your addiction to lists and your dependence on that dopamine squirt they give you every time they get checked off.
Lists are like crack cocaine, except they don’t cause tooth decay. They just make it impossible to stay focused on what matters.
Just look at the life of a CEO. If you have a list of all the things they have to do, they’re probably at work from Monday to Friday, going from meeting to meeting, trying to get work done without being interrupted. But we’re different. We know what happens when you try to cram every available moment with too many tasks that are important but needn’t be urgent, or when you overload yourself with “priorities” that aren’t really priorities for you in the first place.
We all need a strategy that helps us focus, but it can’t be just any strategy. It needs to be one that keeps us productive, makes us more efficient, and leaves us with extra time each day to pursue the things that really matter. So we’re going to eliminate a list of action items, aka our “to do lists” for the sake of keeping ourselves on track towards our goals.
Of course there are those rare times when we actually have to get work done one thing at a time (like writing this article), or finally finish that project that could get you fired if you didn’t complete it. But that doesn’t mean you have to get done everything on your list.
Don’t worry about it, we all have to learn how to live and survive in a world where we can waste time.
So let’s take the stress out of your life and instead focus on the things that really matter. Start by making a simple change in your routine today: You’re going to cut out all of those annoying little lists you normally make every day. We can call that “Tear up Your To Do Lists!”
Let me explain why this is a good idea because it might not be obvious at first.
When you have a to do list, it’s like trying to get your life organized with a bunch of post-its. Whenever you’re overwhelmed by something, you start decorating your post-it with little notes about what needs to be done. And then you end up with a giant stack of papers that are all over the place and constantly in the way of completing your tasks or doing what really matters.
But if you don’t need lists, there are other ways we can use our limited brainpower to get more done: by using our natural tendency towards routines and goal setting in order to make ourselves better people in less time.
In other words, you don’t need to schedule or “prioritize” every single thing that you do because most of it isn’t worth that much time. Instead, slow down and simplify your daily routine.
So stop making lists and start focusing on the handful of things that would make a difference in your life if you got them done, like your goals or big-picture dreams.
I know planning every minute of your day feels like a good idea. It lets you feel in control, and it gives you something to check off once you’re done. But the problem with being so rigid is that life has a way of making things happen that you can’t predict or control. Stuff happens when you don’t want it to, and suddenly all your plans for the day are thrown out the window.
And that’s okay! You don’t need a list to tell you not to waste time on distractions like social media or watching cat videos on Youtube. The best way to avoid those things is to prevent yourself from wasting time in the first place. But that’s easier said than done.
So instead of wasting your precious time making lists of things you “need” to do and checking them off, simply focus on getting important tasks done, one thing at a time.
To do this, you only have to decide what is so important that it needs to be completed in the near future and only then complete it. This means your list will be filled with actionable tasks (like calls you have to make or emails you have to answer) instead of unimportant things that could go wrong later on (like the laundry or the dishes).
You may feel a bit overwhelmed if you don’t have the luxury of having a list to check things off, but by making decisions in terms of what is most important, you’ll worry less and stress less.
And that’s pretty much everything there is to know about Tear Up Your To Do Lists! If you liked this article, please Tweet it out!
July 10, 2018 / No Comments / In Article Spotlight
Title: A Way to Calm Down When You Feel Overwhelmed
It’s hard not to feel stressed out when everything seems overwhelming and there’s no way to escape it.
I know that feeling all too well, and I think we all do sometimes. But here’s the thing: if you don’t see a way out, it might be time to look at where your stress is coming from.
You’re probably not in control of the stress or that overwhelm anyway. Most of us can handle less than what we think we can easily, so if you start feeling overwhelmed and stressed out for no good reason, it’s probably because you spend too much time trying to achieve things. There are many pieces to the puzzle of life that are “out of your control,” like when someone cuts you off on the freeway, or your boss fires you without reason.
Conclusion: you put a lot of pressure on yourself because you think you have to do everything perfectly, or else it’s just not good enough. But turning your anxiety and frustration into a productive problem-solving process is really the only way to get ahead in life.
That said, people think that stress is something that can be learned by using the right skills and practices, like yoga or meditation.
But learning how to deal with stress isn’t the same thing as feeling calm or relaxed. You don’t have to stop stressing out if you want to feel more relaxed, but you do need to learn how to handle every situation calmly instead of panicking every time something unpredictable happens.