Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that you shouldn't assign yourself tasks that you
Speaker 1: aren't actually going to do. It's better to be honest
Speaker 1: about what you plan to get done, so you can
Speaker 1: treat your to do list as a contract with yourself.
Speaker 1: In years of talking about productivity, I know some people
Speaker 1: take pride in having a lengthy to do list. There
Speaker 1: are like a thousand items on it, ten thousand, or
Speaker 1: it stretches for eight pages in a word document, or
Speaker 1: it has long and nebulous items on it, like right book,
Speaker 1: to which I say, that is not a to do list.
Speaker 1: It might be a list of something, but it is
Speaker 1: not a to do list. A to do list is
Speaker 1: a list of things you actually intend to do in
Speaker 1: a defined period of time. It could be a weekly
Speaker 1: to do list or more commonly, a daily to do list.
Speaker 1: But the key thing is that whatever length of time
Speaker 1: you are choosing, the only things that should go on
Speaker 1: this list are things you actually intend to do in
Speaker 1: that time. In other words, don't assign yourself work if
Speaker 1: you won't do it. There is no virtue in putting
Speaker 1: something on a to do list and then not doing it,
Speaker 1: it is just as not done as if you never
Speaker 1: put it on the list in the first place, only
Speaker 1: now you feel bad about it too, which is even
Speaker 1: worse of an outcome. Ideally, a to do list is
Speaker 1: a contract with yourself. When you put something on it,
Speaker 1: you are telling yourself that you will in fact do it.
Speaker 1: In the time your to do list covers, you develop
Speaker 1: the discipline of knowing exactly what you can do and
Speaker 1: doing whatever you say you will do. That way, you
Speaker 1: can feel confident putting an item on a future to
Speaker 1: do list knowing you will do it. Then you don't
Speaker 1: feel panicked about assigning a thing that is due Friday
Speaker 1: to Wednesday instead of Tuesday, because you know whatever you
Speaker 1: assigned to Tuesday will happen Tuesday, and whatever you assigned
Speaker 1: to Wednesday will happen Wednesday. Now. Of course, whenever I
Speaker 1: say this, people point out the obvious, what if something
Speaker 1: comes up, what if life happens, to which I say,
Speaker 1: of course, things are going to come up. Life never
Speaker 1: goes exactly as planned. Your to do list needs to
Speaker 1: reflect things that you will do, even when the normal
Speaker 1: emergencies happen. A kid is sick, the babysitter is late,
Speaker 1: you get stuck behind an accident on the way to work,
Speaker 1: a colleague's plane is delayedid you get a big last
Speaker 1: minute request from a top client. While these things might
Speaker 1: not all be normal, none of them are out of
Speaker 1: the realm of possibility. You don't need to prepare for
Speaker 1: things that are let's say, a one out of a
Speaker 1: thousand chance or less. If a meteorite strikes your office building,
Speaker 1: everyone will have bigger problems than that client proposal being late,
Speaker 1: but they're being extra Traffic when it's raining isn't some
Speaker 1: sort of crazy unknown. You want to be sure that
Speaker 1: even if these normal, abnormal things happen, the items on
Speaker 1: your to do list should be things you will get through.
Speaker 1: The obvious conclusion from that is that the list needs
Speaker 1: to be short. Clearly, if you'd need to pick up
Speaker 1: a sick kit at one PM and the power would
Speaker 1: go out in your house for eight hours, you would
Speaker 1: not be able to get to a huge number of things.
Speaker 1: Most people can only choose about three, maybe five major
Speaker 1: things beyond the hard landscape of the day. But that
Speaker 1: is okay because the act of creating a to do
Speaker 1: list should be the act of choosing. When you create
Speaker 1: a to do list, you are saying that these are
Speaker 1: the things that are most important for me to do today.
Speaker 1: These are the things that even if everything else goes wrong,
Speaker 1: I want to complete the act of choosing forces prioritization,
Speaker 1: and that is not a bad thing. If the sun
Speaker 1: is shining and the world is good, and you get
Speaker 1: through your to do list by ten am, by all
Speaker 1: means go find some more things to do. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have a running list somewhere. That's that ten thousand
Speaker 1: item lists that people are so proud of. But to
Speaker 1: do means today. So don't assign yourself work if you
Speaker 1: don't actually intend to do it. You will find yourself
Speaker 1: much more productive if you are honest about this. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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