3 Things to Take Off Your Daily To-Do List
I think y’all all know this by now BUT just in case you’re new, let me get us all on the same page…we are not about long AF daily to-do lists in the Hustle Sanely community.
They’re overwhelming, leave us feeling like we didn’t do enough at the end of the day (even if we checked most of the things off), and they often rob us from being present in the moment.
I think a lot of the time, people overload their to-do lists because they use a daily to-do list the same way they use a brain dump, a schedule, or a catch-all task list but these are all very different things! When you do this, that’s when you’re left staring at a long AF daily to-do list feeling overwhelmed with no idea where to start. Your actual important tasks for the day get lost in the shuffle and you go to bed feeling frazzled and anxious about the same long list tomorrow not the vibe for Hustling Sanely. Around here, we are all about short, sweet, and sustainable daily to-do lists. Most of us are very visually driven beings, right? So we gotta make our to-do lists work for us not against us!
So what are 3 things that I think don’t deserve to make the cut for your daily to-do list?
01. Habits
If something is a habit, aka you’re gonna do it without thinking about it, don’t give it precious space on your to-do list… even though I know it’s tempting to put it on there just so you can cross it off.
I don’t put things like my skincare, feed the dogs, and my morning routine on my daily to-do list because those things are autopilot for me to do every day. I don’t have to remember to do them therefore they don’t need to be sitting on my to-do list, making it longer than necessary.
One question I get when I talk about this tip is, “What if I’m working to make something a habit but it’s not one yet?” Then totally go ahead and put it on your daily to-do list. Let’s say you’re trying to make reading after work a habit but it hasn’t quite stuck yet. Go ahead and put that on your to-do list if you need the reminder to do it.
02. Tasks you do multiple times per day
These might also be referred to as reoccurring tasks. So for example, I don’t like putting things like checking email on my daily to-do list because it feels overwhelming since I do it 2 times per day.
Instead, try creating routines and time blocking these things in to your day using habit stacking.
Here’s what I mean: I check emails 2 times per day and hardly ever have it on my to-do list (unless there is a specific email I need to remember to send or reply to). Instead, I’ve created triggers to make checking my email 2 times a day a habit that I do without thinking about it. When I sit down at my desk, first thing in the morning, I spend 15 minutes in my inbox before I start my work tasks. Then, after lunch, I spend another 30 minutes in my inbox to help me get back into work mode after my lunch break. These are now routines in my day so I don’t need to have “answer emails” on my to-do list every day.
So think of tasks that you have to do more than one time a day and brainstorm how you can use habit triggers to help you remember to do these things without having to write them on your to-do list.
03. Meetings and Appointments
Instead of putting these on your to-do list, put them on your schedule — that way your to-do list stays light and you can really see what tasks need to be done that day.I will say, that I personally like to see my daily to-do list and my schedule side by side.
That’s all well and good – knowing that it’s not as helpful as you think to put habits, recurring tasks, and meetings and appointments on your daily to-do list. But what are some ways that you can keep track of these things and other open-ended tasks so that they don’t fall through the cracks? That’s where 4 of my fave productivity tools come in: a daily to-do list (which we’ve talked about what doesn’t belong on there already), a brain dump, a schedule, and a catch-all task list.
I want to wrap this up by explaining what each of these are and how you can use all of them together to live a peacefully productive life.
DAILY TO-DO LIST
Like I said, we’ve covered what not to put on here so what does belong on your daily to-do list then? When I think of a daily to-do list, I think of tasks that need to be done that day. To me, a solid daily to-do list is made up of 2 parts:
01. Your HS5 tasks: which if you have no clue what HS5 is, let me catch you up really quick – HS5 stands for Hustle Sanely 5 and these are 5 things that they Hustle Sanely community does every day to make sure we are pursuing our goals while prioritizing our mental health and the important relationships in our lives. Our daily HS5 tasks are:
~ Complete your Focus 3 (your 3 most important tasks that need to get done that day).
~ Move for 30 minutes.
~ Tidy for 15 minutes.
~ Say or do one kind thing for yourself.
~ Say or do one kind thing for someone else.
02. A few other tasks that would be nice to get done that day. I do my best to keep my “would be nice to get done” tasks to a minimum because as a recovering workaholic, I know I have a tendency to want to complete my daily to-do lists. So by keeping fewer tasks on there, I’m able to do that without burning myself out every day, ya know? I usually don’t have more than 4-5 other tasks on my daily to-do list.
BRAIN DUMP
A brain dump is a strategy that I use when I have a lot of tasks that need to be done in my life or business swirling around in my mind and I need to get them out. Now these are tasks that need to be done but maybe don’t need to be done right this second – aka they don’t belong on your daily to-do list.
When I do a brain dump, I literally get out a piece of blank paper and just write any and every task that needs to be done. I don’t put anything in any specific order and I definitely don’t try to keep it nice and neat.
Then once I have all of the things out of my brain, I go through and organize my brain dump list by putting tasks where they belong – either on my daily to-do list (things that really do need to be done that day) or on my catch-all task list, which we’ll be talking about in just a bit.
I don’t keep my brain dumps after this step because then I find that I have 5 messy brain dumps from a 3-month period and it doesn’t actually help with my overwhelm.
I brain dump everything, then organize the tasks that I brain dumped, then toss the brain dump.
I love using brain dumps for specific projects to help me create a timeline or for new seasons of life. When I found out I was pregnant back in April, I did a massive brain dump where I wrote down every single thing I could think of that needed to be done and then I used that to create a catch-all task list for each month leading up to baby girl’s arrival in December. That way I didn’t feel stressed out or like I needed to do everything all at once.
SCHEDULE
This one is pretty self explanatory but I’m gonna talk about it for a minute anyway! Schedule is defined as: a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times.So basically attaching certain tasks and events to specific times during a day. I like to use time blocking when creating my schedule, which I’ve talked about often on the show and on Instagram, and that’s where you create blocks throughout your day and assign tasks that match those blocks to the coordinating times.So my schedule one Thursday might look like this (which if you don’t know, Thursdays are my calls, meetings, and coaching day):
6:00-7:00 Morning routine
7:30-9:00 Gym
9:30-11:00 Warehouse and post office
11:15-11:45 Get ready
12:00-3:00 Call block (when I’m available for calls, interviews, and meetings)
3:00-5:00 Coaching block. Within the call block and coaching block, on my daily schedule, I’d have written in any specific calls or coaching meetings that I had that specific Thursday.
CATCH-ALL TASK LIST
The last tool I want to talk about is the most fluid of the bunch – as in, there are many different ways you can go about making them, depending on your needs. At its core, a catch-all task list is somewhere you keep a running list of tasks that need to be done so that you don’t forget about anything. This can look like whatever you want it to. For me, I have a catch-all task list for each month and it’s broken down into 2 categories: life and business. When I am sitting down to plan out my weeks during my weekly prep meetings, I open my catch-all tasks list and am able to pull tasks from it to put on my weekly to-do list which I then use to help me create my daily to-do lists.
I make it a habit to not look at my catch-all task list every day because that defeats the purpose of it. I view a catch-all task list as a container to hold my tasks that need to be done until I have the capacity to do them. And just a little reminder, and if you’ve been in the Hustle Sanely community for awhile, you can say this with me: our schedules and routines are tools, not chains. All of these things are meant to support you – to make your life easier and flow better so don’t allow them to take hold of you and stress you out!
Hopefully these tips will help you not feel so overwhelmed by your to-do list and you can find a better system and structure that works for you and your productivity! 💃🏻
Looking for a tool to help you create Hustle Sanely-ish to-do lists? We’ve got you covered:
If you found this blog post helpful and you would like to listen to the full podcast episode, tune in below!
