Hand-writing your daily, weekly or ad-hoc todo lists introduces a surprisingly effective physical tax that prevents that list growing beyond what is achievable. Two years ago, I switched to hand-writing my daily to-do list and I find it to be one of the most important foundations to keeping me on track and helping to maintain a sense of reality about when I can commit to getting things done. Prior to that I had used countless to-do apps, and before then was trapped in the inbox-as-a-todo-list fallacy.
Every Sunday night I sit down and plan out 10 pages in a paper notebook (a red Moleskin, though all other notebooks I use are by Leuchturm). The plan starts with a page that summarizes my high-level goals for the week, followed by a page per day headlined as “Plan for <Day> <Date>” and a single page for follow up items at the end of the week that I will carry forward when I plan the next week. I use the summary page to note down what I want to focus on this week for myself, for my health, for my son, and for my work. That’s usually the hardest part and so I’ll start by structuring the 7 days ahead of me. Each page-per-day gets a few recurring items: what time will I wake up (always 5am), what will I have for lunch and dinner, and what exercise I will do that day. Then I’ll consult a page at the back of the notebook for recurring tasks. With the mandatory chores and basic parameters of the day in place — and most importantly, taking up space on the page — I can then start filling in the work and personal tasks I need to complete on each day. Some of these will be carried over from the last week, some will be based on looking at my calendar for the week coming up, and the rest will come from what I want to commit to achieving this week. By Sunday night, most of the coming days are already quite full. Typically there’s maybe 5-6 lines spare before and after lunch, and 2 or 3 after dinner each evening.
The scarcity of space on the page, combined with effort tax of writing keeps me realistic about what work I can take on, whether a task is really going to get done, and when it’s time to delegate or defer a piece of work. Electronic to-do lists and organizer apps fail me in this regard. There’s no penalty incurred if I end up moving an item from one day to the next and there’s often no limit to the number of items I can track. When you have to hand write the same item again if you move it from one day to the next then you incur a physical tax. It becomes tiring writing that same to-do item two, three, four or more times; and that’s when you naturally begin to question where you’re really going to get it done! I’ve become aware of my own velocity and how many items I’m likely to get done during the segments of my day. Being able to glance at a physical piece of paper, that I curate with deliberate effort, gives me a very tangible sense of when a day is already over committed and when I’m honestly able to slot in a particular task. Once a task is written down I know I’ll keep tracking that item until it gets done or I realize that re-writing it yet again on another day won’t change the fact I’m unlikely to accommodate this task.
What I’ve described here is what works for me and is an evolution from a core concept: that writing out what you plan to do prevents you amassing an insurmountable list of things to do. I courage you to experiment with this in a simple way at first to see if you get some benefit from it. It can be as simple as first maintaining a paper to-do list in a notebook. I evolved this into a week-long planning exercise because that’s the time horizon along which I feel like I can meaningfully regulate what work I take on to achieve outcomes. For some people they prefer to work day by day, or even hour by hour. The quantum you use for organizing your life doesn’t is less important than ensuring you’re paying a physical tax for taking on the things you say you’ll do. Saying you’ll do something and adding it to an electronic to-do list is too easy. Incurring the physical tax of writing and re-writing the item, and allocating it scarce space on a page, will incentivize you to get it done and make it abundantly clear when you can’t take on anything more.
