Why You Never Finish Your To-Do List
Raise your hand if you end up re-writing the same never-ending to-do list every single day because the tasks just never seem to get done 🥴
It's really overwhelming to feel like you always have a long AF to-do list to tackle and like you're always behind in life. Well as your productivity BFF, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way. It's time for you to ditch that long AF to-do list once and for all and start getting stuff done that aligns with your goals.
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ 3 reasons why you're not finishing your to-do list and what you can do about each one
01. You don’t finish your to-do list because it’s too long.
This one sounds like a no-brainer, right? But it’s important because it has become the norm to overload your daily to-do list and that is definitely one way to hustle INsanely. Just because we’ve always done something one way doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it.
Be honest – are you guilty of using your to-do list as a junk drawer for your life? Like anytime you think of a task or someone asks you for something, you stop what you’re doing and add it to your daily to-do list without a second thought.
BAD IDEA.
Doing this puts us into react mode when we really want to be operating from respond mode. Let’s ponder on that really quick:
⋒ React mode: I picture someone standing in front of a baseball throwing machine – you know, at the batting cages – without a glove or anything to catch the balls. The machine keeps throwing balls at them and their best strategy is to jump out of the way every time. The person is hopping left, right, rolling out of the way as another ball flies toward them. They’re not really addressing the balls coming at them but instead are using all of their energy to get away from the balls – they’re not playing strategically – they’re not in charge…they’re on the defense.
⋒ Respond mode: I picture someone standing at that same baseball throwing machine but they have on a glove. They are taking charge – they’re on the offense. They’re ready for when things are thrown at them. They can catch the balls and toss them where they need to go. They’re not having to use energy dodging the balls and then having to go back later and figure out where they need to go but instead can catch the balls as they come and put them where they need to be.
Obviously, we want to be in response mode. I read this book last month called It Happened Last Summer – it’s literally a romcom-esque romance fiction book – and I read this quote from the male character and I thought WOW YES! It says, “His life might run on schedules and routine, but that organized mentality is what made it easier for him to manage the chaos.”
Very random book to share a quote from BUT it makes a good point – schedules, routines, and properly prioritized task lists help us to be better managers of our lives. They help us respond instead of react.
Not only that but when we look at a to-do list that is so long, we are automatically overwhelmed. Just seeing a long list stops our mind in its tracks and we start having thoughts like, “OMG how am I going to get this all done?!” before we even start to really read what the tasks are.
Before Hustle Sanely, I remember having one giant life to-do list and I would roll pretty much every task over to tomorrow every single day so I was constantly left feeling defeated, behind, and burned out. Every morning, I would wake up, grab my planner, and rewrite the same to-do list from the day before. It was a neverending cycle.
Our minds are funny and like I just said, to-do lists have such a big mental component to them so we have to accommodate that and meet our minds where they’re at by chunking our task lists.
You don’t need to put every single little thing on your daily to-do list because when your mind sees that of course it’s going to go into overwhelm mode.
Solution: Use a catch-all task list to keep track of tasks.
Doing this keeps your mind at ease and creates a path of least resistance for you to follow. What does that mean? You’re not sitting down looking at this huge list wondering which tasks you actually need to do today off that list but instead, you know what needs to be done when and you can sit down and spend your energy doing the tasks.
When you think of something that needs to be done or maybe someone asks you to do something, put it on your catch-all task list, and then when you sit down for your weekly prep meeting, take a peek at your catch-all task list and see what needs to be taken care of the next week from it.
Not every task needs to be done today. I promise. And it’s so good for your mindset to know and embrace that. That way, when you’re unwinding for the evening, you can actually unwind, be present with your fam, and take care of your mental health instead of thinking about that dang to-do list that you didn’t finish today.
Oh and guess what? The 2023 planners have a monthly catch-all task list that is broken down into personal tasks and professional tasks. This keeps you from putting everything that pops into your head onto your daily to-do list.
Oh and side note: y’all know that our planners sold out in January this year! If you want to make sure you’re on the waitlist for the 2023 planners, aka you’re the first to know, other than the Hustle Sanely BFFs, when you can pre-order a planner for next year, go sign up for the waitlist!
02. You don’t finish your to-do list because you don’t prioritize tasks well.
What I’m saying here is you’re not really using your time wisely. You don’t know which tasks are the most important and you’re just randomly grabbing at tasks on the list just so you can get that satisfaction of checking something off.
I call easy tasks low-hanging fruit tasks. Can you relate – you start the day with an easy task because you don’t know what to do first. Then you go on to the next easiest task. And the next easiest task and so on. When lunchtime rolls around, you find yourself staring at a list full of high-energy tasks that actually need to be done today and you don’t have the capacity to do them because you used up all of your good quality mental energy on the easy tasks.
This is why you need to prioritize your to-do lists.
Solution: So that is your solution – prioritize your to-do lists by chunking your task lists.
Picture a pyramid.
At the top, you have your monthly catch-all task list – where you put tasks that you don’t know exactly when they need to be done or they don’t have a specific due date. They might be broader tasks.
Then you go down the pyramid – it gets a little bit wider and you have your weekly top 3 tasks – these are your 3 most important tasks to get done for the week. You can get these from checking your catch-all task list and seeing which tasks actually need to be done that week you’re planning for because of a deadline or which tasks are needle-movers for the goal you’re focusing on that month.
Then from there, you’re going to go down to the bottom of the pyramid – the biggest part – and you have your daily Focus 3 tasks. These are the most specific action steps and you get them from looking at your weekly top 3 - you chunk the top 3 tasks into doable daily action steps.
So all of these lists trickle down into each other and it goes: Monthly catch-all > Weekly Top 3 > Daily Focus 3
03. You don’t finish your to-do list because you don’t have a game plan.
I see you people who wake up and wing every day…and I’m here to help ya out. Listen, the older I get, the more flexible I’ve become with my schedules and routines. I wouldn’t consider myself a strictly rigid person anymore but now I’m a grace-filled discipline kinda gal when it comes to those kinds of things. So if schedules and routines make you feel like you’re stuck in a box, let’s shift your thinking. Schedules and routines are tools, not chains. Having them in place allows you to get stuff done more efficiently (so with less effort) so you have MORE energy to use on things that matter the most to you, like spending quality time with your family or pursuing a hobby.
You need some sort of game plan before you head into the day because that sets you up to be a good steward of your energy. Being a good steward of your energy means that you’re doing things when they make the most sense for you to do them so that you’re doing them to the best of your ability.
Example: I’ve told you before that I know that I am mentally the sharpest at the beginning of my workday so it’s important and makes sense for me to prioritize my high mental energy tasks at the beginning of the day.
If I didn’t have a game plan in place for each day, I might put off the high mental energy task until the end of the day without realizing it and that creates a lot of unnecessary resistance because it makes the task feel harder since I’m not as mentally sharp so it’s probably gonna end up taking me longer.
Solution: Create a game plan using energy-aligned time blocking with your daily to-do list.
In the Peacefully Productive Schedule Course, I teach my students how to create a daily outline for each day of the week so that they don’t have to think about creating a game plan from scratch every day. One of the tools that I teach them is using energy-aligned time blocking.
What is time blocking exactly? Simply put, it's scheduling out your day. Assigning certain tasks to certain times during the day.
Let's go a little deeper:
It's a well-known time management tool where you divide your day into blocks of time. Each block is assigned a specific task (or group of tasks). During that time block, you only work on the task that you’ve assigned to it. This strategy helps us stay focused on a single task (or group of tasks that go together) with a less likely chance of giving into working a little bit on 15 things at once, really getting not much done, and sending ourselves into a tailspin of overwhelm.
During each time block, you work on whatever is assigned. Nothing else. You can choose different amounts of time for each task - for example, I typically block off an hour each afternoon to interact with my online community (responding to DMs, comments, etc.) but I block off 2 hours to write a podcast script. Different tasks will require different time blocks.
As you practice, you'll get better at learning how much time to allocate for each task and when to schedule which tasks into which time blocks. This is where the "energy-aligned" part comes in. Energy-aligned time blocking is creating a schedule that makes sense and works with your energy. I schedule my online community hour for after lunch because it doesn't require a ton of brainpower and I don't have a ton of brainpower left after lunch. I am my most creative and most mentally sharp in the morning so I schedule tasks like writing and creating content for morning time blocks.
If I don't finish a task once my time block is up if it's not a time-sensitive task (as in it's not due that day) I will move on to the next thing on my time blocked schedule. Or if I'm in the zone with the task I didn't finish and I'm really close to wrapping it up, and I can rearrange other things that day, I'll do that. Now obviously, if there is an emergency or something that pops up, be flexible. I'll say it again - our schedules are tools, not chains. Use your judgment!
So if you find yourself never finishing your to-do list, try creating a game plan using energy-aligned time blocking!
Need support in learning how to build a schedule that honors your energy & supports your priorities?
If you enjoyed this blog post, tune into episode 119 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to dive deeper into this topic:
