I live and die by my todo list. I started keeping a list using Omnifocus in grad school and wound my way around every other major platform like 2do, Todoist, and Things over the last thirteen years. My list is on screen all day, and I constantly capture new tasks on my phone on the go. I even gave a Getting Things Done presentation at our college conference a few years ago and proudly displayed the number of completed tasks in my presentation, as if the number of tasks completed is the best way to measure success. Until recently, Todoist was my tool of choice, and it added a gamification element, which encouraged me to do more more more to achieve Karma points. This bean counting mentality worked so well for me as I progressed in my career, and I credit my rigid adherence to these systems as a factor in my success. But, as my role evolved, I noticed the drive to check boxes made it more difficult to make meaningful progress on projects I truly cared to complete.

I’m fortunate that my role requires long stretches of uninterrupted concentration and deep work. Moving the needle on big projects like reading, writing, leading a team, and managing technology transitions, has become a daily requirement. From a todo list perspective, these projects are horribly unsatisfying. Instead of checking off fifteen mundane administrative tasks before lunch, I may read several academic articles, sketch out an academic writing project, and check off zero items on my todo list. Although my list occasionally houses important project milestones, it mostly serves to keep track of the mundane administrative tasks that have to be done eventually but don’t move the needle. The bigger projects are ongoing and often don’t have firm deadlines or require tracking of minutiae.

Annual reviews are a practical example of this deep work. Early in my career, I felt annual reviews were meaningless because my boss clearly knew little about me and hadn’t spent time reviewing the documents I was required to submit. I know what it feels like to waste time submitting self-assessments and am determined to ensure my team members feel their annual reviews are valuable to their professional development. Setting aside one or two solid days to review team reflections and artifacts for my team members is a core ingredient to ensuring that I don’t waste their time in the review process. The work is high value, but I find myself growing anxious in these long stretches of time as my todo list grows. In reality, I can batch most of the administrative items on my todo list once I’m finished with the deep work for the day, but my brain can’t handle a stagnating list.

As deep work projects become more prevalent, and honestly leave me feeling more fulfilled, I realized that my todo list mentality is no longer serving me. Although keeping a list is part of being organized, it should no longer serve as the focal point for my day. Decoupling myself from my list has been an ongoing process of experimentation. Through this transition, the following practices and tools have helped me take the leap.

Time Blocking – Time Blocking refers to the practice of blocking chunks of calendar time to work on themed tasks or projects. Although he refers to it as hyper scheduling, here’s a great MacSparky post that explains the basics. Since most of my higher level thinking, reading, writing, and planning activities don’t fall neatly into a todo list format, I block chunks of time on my calendar to work on these projects. I devote the mornings to items that require significant concentration, because my brain is most alive at this time. I typically have one or two larger morning time blocks for big projects then an hour or two at the end of the day for admin/email, since my brain is best suited for tackling low energy tasks in the afternoon. Instead of getting hung up in the todo list in the morning and burning my high energy hours, I save the mundane stuff for the end of the day.

Review – The weekly review is a core ritual that keeps the correct balls in the air. On Mondays, I look at my projects list and set priorities for the week. I highlight all the projects and tasks that I plan to tackle. This is where I do the deepest dive into my todo list to determine weekly priorities. Each day begins with a calendar review. Some days, I have back to back meetings and may only be able to add one or two short time blocks during the day. I pull tasks/projects into my time blocks as appropriate. Other days, I’ll have an entire free day that I can use as I wish. I’ll add one or two deep work project blocks at the beginning of the day and use the afternoon for lower energy administrative tasks. If I don’t get the weekly admin stuff done in a daily admin block, I’ll simply move it to the next day. I actually call these admin tasks Tidbits in my todo list to emphasize that getting them done today isn’t life or death. A sample day might looks like this on my calendar:

• 8am-9am – Reading
• 9am – 9:30am – Daily planning
• 9:30 – 11:00am – Record video tutorial for new system
• 11am – noon – Lunch
• noon – 1pm – Leadership Meeting
• 1pm – 2:30pm – Revise article draft
• 2:30pm – 3:30pm – Tidbits
• 3:30pm – 5pm – Email
  

Time blocking provides the added benefit of avoiding choice fatigue. Time blocking my day in the mornings means I don’t have to spend time procrastinating or deciding what to do next in the afternoons, once I’ve hit braindead hours. This keeps me from opening email and getting lost cleaning my inbox or checking off low energy tasks. I change blocks as needed, but setting priorities at the beginning of the day and removing the minute-by-minute decision making has been a huge energy win. I waste much less time deciding what to do next. Since I’m living less in my list during the day, regular review ensures that I don’t miss any of the critical tasks that have to be completed within a certain timeframe. If you feel you are always forgetting something important, weekly and daily reviews may be what you’re missing.

Notetaking – For those familiar with my fountain pen blog, you might be shocked to hear that I am a terrible notetaker! I’ll write notes in a throwaway notebook or put them into an app like Drafts, Tot, or Apple Note with little rhyme or reason. This was fine for short-term projects, but as the complexity of my projects increases, I more frequently need to refer to past notes and find they are either missing or incomplete. I need a better system for note taking.

NotePlan – NotePlan is an excellent combo of note taking app, task manager, and calendar that pulls all these pieces together. It provides powerful tools for keeping track of tasks but also de-emphasizes tasks since they are mixed in with regular notes. Since project tasks are embedded in project notes, this pushes me to take more notes and keep them organized neatly within each project. The best part is that this requires less energy than my prior hodgepodge method of note taking and is much more effective. NotePlan features a wonderful time blocking system that I use to block time on my calendar. I do weekly planning in a weekly note then drag the day’s tasks into a daily note. NotePlan automatically syncs time blocks to my calendar of choice, and once I set up blocks and tasks, I close my app and get to work.

I’m just getting started with this process, and it’s going to take time to undo years of training. Still, de-emphasizing my todo list, taking better notes, and embracing the calm of calendar blocks has reduced my task-oriented anxiety and, more importantly, reframed my focus on the larger projects that have greater impact.