The Struggle With To-Do Lists

You have so many things to do! How do you keep up with your list of tasks to be completed? Are you someone who uses a beautiful, fancy paper planner with a special place for a to-do list? Do you prefer digital tools so you can get alerts? Or maybe the digital tools just mean one less thing to keep up with for you.

Surely you aren’t one of the people who has a list that you started on the back of the envelope from the cable bill or the napkin from lunch and then you jotted a few more things down on the purple sticky note and then the other thing you remembered you just wrote on your own palm. At least you’re hoping you can at least keep up with your palm. But then…nature calls and you need to wash your hands after so now, you have scraps of paper stuck in your pockets of various pants and jackets and some illegible something on the inside of your hand. You also have no idea what you need to accomplish.

Exploring Your Options

I’ve also come across another method of keeping up with things that need to be done – just avoid list-making completely and hope for the best. 

I think we can just say from the start that the scraps of paper and the no tools at all methods are less than ideal. So if that’s true, what is the BEST way to keep up with your list? Let’s consider 3 categories of options that are readily available to us. 

Paper Planning

First, we can use a consistent paper plan of some kind. There are simple notebooks of various sizes that you can use. You can get special notepads printed for the express purpose of creating a to-do list. There are also planners that include tools for scheduling your calendar as well as special places for keeping up with your list. You may enjoy finding the perfect planner that has your favorite quote on the front and a place for your pen attached. Any of these can work. And any of these can also be forgotten on your desk or left in your other bag. In order to use paper lists, you must create a habit around whichever thing you have chosen. Without a strong habit, these methods are highly likely to fail.

Digital Tool

What about digital tools? One advantage to using tech to keep up with your list may be the simple fact that it’s not one more thing to keep up with. It is highly likely that you will have your phone with you – for better and for worse – almost everywhere you go. Having access to your list on your phone can help you be ready to add items and mark things off at any time. Some tools can even be used across all the devices you have like a laptop, desktop, tablet, and phone making the list seamlessly available to you. As much as you may love your beautiful paper planner, it can’t yet set off a reminder alarm or vibration which also means that for many of us, having a tech tool may work better. Still, what is true about creating a habit around paper lists is just as true for digital ones. You must craft a habit of regularly adding things to your list and then marking off the tasks as you complete them in order for the list to be valuable. Additionally, there is a non-zero percent risk of getting sucked into a social media binge on a tech device which may mean paper is an exponentially better choice for you!

My Hybrid Approach

Personally, I have come up with a plan that is working for me right now. It’s a little wild but hear me out. I have a paper planner I love. It’s beautiful and blue and has a gazillion features that make it fun. I don’t use nearly all of them but they’re in there if I ever decide to. I use the planner to do my to-do list PLANNING; I use a digital tool to keep up with my actual list of to-dos. I have to be able access that list wherever I am and whatever I’m doing. I also love that the one I use is available across all the other tech tools I use like email, word processing, and my digital calendar. Each Monday, I spend an hour or so going over my digital to-do list and then putting the things that need to be accomplished for that week onto a list in my paper planner. While I have my coffee in the mornings, I also spend a few minutes comparing my digital list to my notes on paper to cross-reference my thoughts. I make a plan based on my calendar and to do lists that will work for that day. For me, the repetition of using both kinds of tools is meaningful. I like the “both/and” of it.

Embracing Change

But here’s one final thought about all this. Just because I am loving this system and it’s working well for me right now doesn’t mean that it’s the perfect system – certainly not for everyone and honestly not even for me. In the past, I’ve JUST used a small notebook. I’ve JUST used fancier digital tools. I’ve tried lots of things over time and some of them have been great and some just meh. No matter how I felt about them, though, the one thing that has been true for me is that sometimes, I need a change. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I will keep using my hybrid situation until it no longer serves me well and then I will look around at the options available and try something else. There is no one right way to do this. The important thing is TO DO this – you must have A LIST of things to do where you can access it easily and keep up with everything. No scraps of paper in your pocket and for goodness sake, don’t write your list on your hand.

If you’d like help figuring out a plan that will work well for you, let’s schedule a time to chat. That is exactly the kind of thing that life coaching is for. Well, that and lots of other things, but it’s a great starting point for a coaching relationship.