How to Write Better To-do Lists

How to Write Better To-do Lists

I’ve talked about writing to-do lists in my previous posts. I recently took it one step further and I think it will work for most of the people my age or any age out there.

One of the major misconceptions between humans is that we can multitask. Sorry to break it to you, but we can’t! We just pretend to multitask by shifting our focus from one thing to another and if we’re really good at it, it looks fast multitasking. But in reality you’re just focusing on one thing at a time shifting between various tasks.

The problem develops when you have too many tasks on your to-do lists from different segments in your work profile or stuff you need to take care of throughout the day. For example, you would have certain tasks related to web development and then a few things related to office decor distributed across the week. So you’ll do some development on Monday for a couple of hours and then try to do the rest of it on Tuesday because on Monday you also have to allocate time to other tasks.

This type of task execution can easily drain you as your mind is constantly jumping from one task to another throughout the day without getting closure on the overall task. You might check off the micro task off your to-do list (like creating a header for website) but you’re not completely finishing the web development work.

I’ve found it easy to focus on one major task per day instead of segmenting it throughout the week. All you have to do is each day create a major task list and then break it down into micro steps you need to perform for the day. So an ideal to-do list will look something like this

WEB DEVELOPMENT

  1. Header design (10 am)
  2. Logo design (11 am)
  3. Slider design (1 pm)
  4. Develop homepage containers (3 pm)
  5. Finalize homepage (4 pm)

This way, you’re working in just one niche work topics throughout the day which will keep you more focused in what you do and you’ll come up with more ideas to do certain things because you’re not shifting your focus anymore.

Artwork: https://dribbble.com/shots/10822383-WFH

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