To-do Lists Revamped to Manage Stress
We all have a to-do list. It’s either rolling around in our head all the time or we have a bunch of random pieces of paper all over the house/work with many lists on them. Does this sound familiar?
The list in your head probably plays over and over again all day long and you review it before going to sleep at night. Chances are this makes it harder to fall asleep or have a good night’s sleep. There’s also a good chance that you forget somethings sometimes because of it just being in your head along with all of the other knowledge you need to have. This probably used to work better for you, but you are here because life’s more stressful and you’re just not keeping up with everything anymore.
If you are the other type of person with a bunch of pieces of paper and lists all over, you may think you are doing better. And you may be. It might be better for you than having everything just jumbled in your head. But you often can’t find the correct list, or you look at a long list and get overwhelmed by everything on it.
Here’s a way to manage things slightly differently moving forward with a step-by-step guide.
Step 1: The master list
Everyone is going to start by making a master list, maybe two, one for work and one for home. But a central list with all of the tasks that you can think of on it. Yes, this is potentially going to be a long list, or very, very long list. It’s okay, take a deep breath. We’re not done yet. Put everything on the list, short term tasks, long term tasks, all of it. This is going to be, like the name says, your master list. You are simply going to add to this list as you remember things or new things come up and refer to this list for the next few steps.
Example:
· Wash the car
· Bath the dog
· Plan the birthday party
· Vacuum
· Plan the next vacation
· Grocery list for next week
· Read that book
· Practice the piano
Step 2: Break down the list
This step comes in handy for some of those big projects as we move forward. You are going to take the big projects, like planning the birthday party, and make it several steps. Maybe some of you could get that done in one day and one sitting. But if you can’t or you get disrupted, we want to have clear stopping points and clear goals accomplished.
Let’s explain. Planning the birthday party is now going to have multiple steps under it to complete the larger task:
· Planning the birthday party
o Determine a venue
o Plan a guest list
o Determine menu
o Who is cooking/catering?
o Games, activities, entertainment
o Make invitations
o Send invitations
o Get presents
o Get decorations
You are going to want to do this with all of the larger tasks on the list. From now on when you add a task to the to-do list, it may be helpful to break it down in steps for yourself immediately if that’s how you have time and can think about the things. This part will get easier with practice and doesn’t have to be perfect at first.
Step 3: Daily/Weekly lists
How many tasks do you average in a day? Think about the last few months and how much you get done on a daily basis. With this example, we would think about outside of work and typical daily home chores, like cooking. Let’s say we have time for 2 tasks per week day and 4 per weekend day. Keep this number on the lower end. It’s not a challenge to see how much you can push yourself. We really need to be successful as much as possible.
Once you have the magic number, you are going to create a daily to-do list by pulling items from your master list as a guide.
Example:
Monday: read one chapter from the book & clean the kitchen counters
Tuesday: Vacuum the front half of the house & read another chapter from the book
Wednesday: Vacuum the rest of the house & practice piano
Thursday: Plan the menu for next week & grocery list
Friday: Grocery shopping & mop kitchen floors
Saturday: Bath the dog, practice the piano for an hour, go to tee ball game, prepare snacks for the week
Sunday: Wash the car, look for party venues, meal prep for the week, and read the book
How does this help?
Writing down the master to-do list helps you clear out space in your mind for other important things. Like your anniversary or that helpful persons name that you met the other day. It gives you a place to be organized, see everything, and plan.
The daily to-do list allows you to only think about what is more important for that day. You no longer get overwhelmed by the things that you want to get done in the next month or next spring because you have a plan for it and you can trust that it will make it on to those to-do lists.
Another important step to all of this is checking off the tasks. On both the daily list and the master list, you want to check off, cross out, or scribble over (whichever you prefer or all three) the task but ONLY AFTER it is complete. Don’t get caught counting your chickens before they hatch and confusing yourself.
