Create a better to-do list

A listener suggests giving all tasks a time

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip comes from a listener who has upgraded her
to do lists by giving all tasks a time frame.
People love to hate to do lists, and certainly many

(00:24):
people don't use them effectively. Over the years, lots of
people have sent me one study that found that about
half of the tasks on people's to do lists are
done in a day, but are never done at all.
I have to confess that I find this bewildering. There's
absolutely no point in putting something on it to do
list if you don't actually intend to do it. I

(00:47):
could see maybe one task every few days not happening
because of something truly unforeseen. But it's the nature of
life for stuff to come up. This is not a surprise.
If of items aren't getting done, there's a mismatch between
people's intentions and reality. One of the most important mismatches

(01:08):
is a gap between how much time is available and
how much time the items on a to do list
will take to get done. Fifteen hours of tasks don't
fit in five hours of time, and by the way,
five hours of tasks is about all you can reasonably
commit to ahead of time during an eight hour work day.
But Listener Ginger has come up with a strategy to

(01:30):
mitigate this common time planning fallacy. As she puts it,
my productivity hack is to use to do timelines instead
of to do lists. She explains the reason for this
is that if I have an unstructured work day, something
she says is rare but can happen, I easily get
distracted and end up wasting half of the day without

(01:53):
getting anything done. So I change up my to do
list to look like this. In her email, she listed
out her tasks with a time frame next to all
of them. For instance, eight ten to eight thirty, she
would make her to do timeline. From eight thirty to
nine fifteen, she'd check email from nine fifteen to eleven o'clock.
Should review training materials. From eleven to eleven thirty, she'd

(02:15):
create a training schedule. From eleven thirty to eleven forty five,
she would send an email about supplies. Eleven forty five
to twelve thirty. Should work on one of her job
specific projects thirteen thirty a meeting about a different project
thirteen thirty to fourteen thirty, she says, on her schedule lunch. Now,
if you can convert those twenty four hour clock entries

(02:35):
to conversational time, you'll notice that Gingers to do timeline
ends at two thirty PM. This does not mean her
day ends then, however, this is her acknowledging reality. I
never schedule out the whole day because other things come up,
she says. Maybe a colleague emails that he forgot to
tell her about a meeting but they really need her input,

(02:58):
or a manager needs a quick turnaround on something. If
Ginger doesn't have the whole day scheduled, she can regroup
to deal with these things. Once I get to the
end of my to do timeline, I review what I
was able to get completed, what still needs to be done,
and what else popped up, she says, and I create
another timeline for the rest of the day. The brilliance

(03:20):
of Ginger's approach is that she recognizes that all tasks
take time. If you are not willing to assign a
task a time, that means there's a high chance you
are not going to do it. I mean, maybe a
time will magically appear, but probably not so. If you'd
like to create smarter to do lists, take some time

(03:42):
the night before or in the morning to think through
what you'd like to accomplish. Keep the list short right
out when you will do everything. Don't fill all available
time in case you're wrong on how long something takes
or in case things come up. But if you do
keep doing this, your to do lists are far more

(04:03):
likely to become lists of accomplishment rather than sources of guilt.
How do you structure your to do lists? You can
let me know at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart
media dot com. And if you have a strategy like
gingers that makes you more productive and you'd like to
share it with fellow listeners, please let me know that too.

(04:23):
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod

(04:48):
that's b E the number four than breakfast p o D.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
podcast at i heeart Media dot com that Before Breakfast
is old out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

(05:10):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H