Do you ever wonder why your to-do lists keeps growing and growing with no end in sight? Me too! I was super frustrated because it felt like regardless of how many hours I worked, I just couldn’t get it all done.
Then I discovered a simple trick that helped me tame my list and get it back under control.
Listen to today’s episode to learn how to master your ever-growing to-do list.
Transcript
Benjamin Franklin is the godfather of the to-do list.
Speaker:He would create detail lists of everything that he needed to do
Speaker:and what time he would get it done.
Speaker:He would start his day with prayer and personal hygiene and planning.
Speaker:After a long day of work he would wrap it up with a review
Speaker:of what was done that day.
Speaker:The challenge is that most of us have lists that have grown
Speaker:completely out of control.
Speaker:Every day our list grows longer and longer and it's harder to manage.
Speaker:So do lists actually work.
Speaker:On today's episode, I'm going to share with you how to tame your to-do list,
Speaker:how to think about your to-do list, and actually use a list to get more done.
Speaker:I'm Amin Ahmed, and welcome to Be Well, Do Well.
Speaker:The first thing I want to talk about is that your to-do list is not a plan.
Speaker:Someone once told me that your to-do list is sort of like a grocery list.
Speaker:It's all the things that you need.
Speaker:Whereas your daily plan is like your meal plan.
Speaker:So you wouldn't just go to the grocery store and just grab random things
Speaker:off the shelf, come home, and then sit there and go, All right, what
Speaker:am I gonna make with all of this?
Speaker:I mean, some of you might, but generally speaking, you have a meal
Speaker:plan and then you get the ingredients that you need for that meal.
Speaker:Otherwise, what happens is that you end up with missing ingredients, for
Speaker:example, or too much of something, or too little of something.
Speaker:Your to-do list is sort of like that.
Speaker:Once you've got a plan, maybe a daily, quarterly, weekly, monthly,
Speaker:annual, even your life plan, then you can start bringing it back in
Speaker:towards your day and decide well, from that giant plan that I have.
Speaker:Let's say your plan is to get 50 new clients this month.
Speaker:Well, if your plan is to get 50 new clients and you break it all down, you
Speaker:say, okay, what do I need to do every in order to get closer to my goal.
Speaker:So your to-do list is really just the itemized things that need to be
Speaker:done that support your overall plan.
Speaker:So now that you've got this idea that your to-do list is
Speaker:not actually your daily plan.
Speaker:Let's now talk about why it's so difficult sometimes to get these things done.
Speaker:I may have talked about this before on a previous episode about this idea
Speaker:of chronotypes, and I love this idea.
Speaker:I read this in a number of different books, and the way a chronotype works is
Speaker:that it's your energy compared to other's.
Speaker:And so generally speaking, you've got your days that you wake
Speaker:up and then you go to sleep.
Speaker:That's considered your circadian rhythm, whereas your chronotype
Speaker:defines your energy within that day.
Speaker:So the 24 hours you've got, what time you wake up and what time you go to
Speaker:sleep, that's your circadian rhythm.
Speaker:But inside of those 24 hours have a lot more energy, sometimes in the
Speaker:beginning, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end of the day,
Speaker:and where your energy is and your pattern that defines your chronotype.
Speaker:There's generally three types of chronotype.
Speaker:The first is your morning larc, that's your early bird.
Speaker:Those are the ones that get up very early between five and let's say seven.
Speaker:Then you've got kind of the later morning birds, those we refer to as the dove.
Speaker:And the dove is where you're sort of a morning bird, but you're gonna be
Speaker:waking up just a little bit later.
Speaker:And then in the other end of the spectrum, you've got your night owl.
Speaker:You're sleeping late, you're waking up late, and your energy is very different
Speaker:compared to your lark and your dove.
Speaker:We've got a quiz on our website, so you can go ahead and head over
Speaker:there to bewelldowell.fm and there's a chronotype quiz that you'll
Speaker:answer a number of questions.
Speaker:So I think there's 19 question.
Speaker:Answer those questions and it'll actually tell you exactly which chronotype you are.
Speaker:Once you know that you're either a morning lark or a dove or a night owl, what you
Speaker:can do is then you can plan your day.
Speaker:Remember all the items that you have in that list.
Speaker:Now you can take that and you can plan your day based on when you
Speaker:naturally have the most energy.
Speaker:This is so important because you wanna make sure that you're actually working
Speaker:when you have the energy to work.
Speaker:So if you are a morning lark, like me, I wake up quite early.
Speaker:If 5:00 AM I'm awake before my kids are awake.
Speaker:I've got two hours to get some work done, and that's when I have the most
Speaker:amount of creative energy and focus is the first thing in the morning.
Speaker:So between five and seven, that's when I'm the most productive and creative.
Speaker:Then later in the morning, I move over to more admin related tasks,
Speaker:and in the afternoon after lunch.
Speaker:I'm useless.
Speaker:When one o'clock runs, rolls around between noon and two o'clock.
Speaker:I definitely try not to have any big meetings, try not to make big
Speaker:decisions, and it's really hard for me to create anything at that time.
Speaker:But in the evening, as it gets closer to dinner time and afterwards
Speaker:I start getting more energy.
Speaker:And that's the time when I start to use that energy not for work cause
Speaker:I've already ended my work day.
Speaker:I use that energy towards connection with friends and family.
Speaker:Those are the things that I do when I have that type of energy in the evening,
Speaker:A night owl is actually flipped upside down.
Speaker:They have a lot more energy in the morning to connect with people
Speaker:and do those sorts of things.
Speaker:But in the evening is when they have the most amount of energy
Speaker:to do creative work and regular, you know, daily job type work.
Speaker:Take The quiz on the website.
Speaker:You'll learn a lot about yourself, whether you're a morning clerk
Speaker:or a dove or a night owl.
Speaker:And then you can download our planner as well, which has a little strip along
Speaker:the side and it shows you when your energy is gonna be the most and least.
Speaker:If you have, so let's say you have meetings, you wanna plan those?
Speaker:Not for me, not after lunch, when I have the least amount of energy and
Speaker:I'm just not feeling myself and I'm not present, but plan it near the end of
Speaker:my day or maybe right after breakfast.
Speaker:If you plan your work when you have the most amount of energy, you'll find
Speaker:that you'll actually get more done.
Speaker:Combine this with other techniques like deep work and focus, and maybe
Speaker:using music to get you into a rhythm of working without any distractions.
Speaker:But the main thing I'm trying to get here is that if you work, when
Speaker:you have the right amount of energy and the right type of energy, you'll
Speaker:definitely get more done, and you'll find that your to-do list actually
Speaker:starts to shrink and shrink and shrink.
Speaker:Recap here would be that your to-do list is not the same as your daily plan.
Speaker:Your grocery list is not same as your meal plan.
Speaker:Think of it that way, and it'll be a lot easier to understand when to
Speaker:make a to-do list, when to make a plan, and how they connect together.
Speaker:Second point is that you need to know your chronotype.
Speaker:If you are a morning lark or a dove or a night owl, plan your work around the
Speaker:time that you have the most amount of energy and the right types of energy.
Speaker:And lastly, work when you have energy, just like I mentioned with the
Speaker:chronotypes, is that get your work done when you have those types of energy,
Speaker:focus, creative, administrative, and you'll end up getting a lot
Speaker:more done and your list will shrink.
Speaker:You can download the planner on our website and you can do the quiz on our
Speaker:website as well bewelldowell.fm and I'll put a link in the show notes down below.
Speaker:I hope this has been helpful for you.
Speaker:On our next episode, we're gonna tie into this a little bit and talk
Speaker:about why you feel tired throughout the day, even though you may be
Speaker:getting a lot of sleep at night.
Speaker:I hope you join me tomorrow.
Speaker:Thanks again for making the Be Well, Do Well Podcast a part of