Countless colleagues and managers who professed their love (and obsession) for to-do lists told me they would help me keep on track, manage my time, and be more productive. They couldn\u2019t be more wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think people realize how harmful this method is for productivity,\u201d Nir Eyal<\/a>, a productivity expert, author, and lecturer tells me.<\/p>\n As Eyal, who is on a mission to \u201crid the world of this horrible practice,\u201d starts to explain why he\u2019s so vehemently opposed to this way of working, I find myself nodding along in agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that keeping a list of things that you need to get done is a bad idea. It\u2019s the fact that people run their days on their to-do lists. That\u2019s what\u2019s very harmful,\u201d says Eyal.<\/p>\n One of the biggest mistakes people make is checking their to-do list before looking at their calendar, he adds.<\/p>\n Eyal tells me there are three reasons why to-do lists don\u2019t work and why they can actually hinder productivity altogether:<\/p>\n Waking up, getting ready for work, and surveying your to-do list sounds ideal, right? Well, it\u2019s not. Often, when people do this, they bypass important or complicated tasks in favor of what\u2019s easier to do or more urgent.<\/p>\n So, what happens next? Well, by ignoring complex tasks, you\u2019re ultimately setting yourself up for failure and disappointment \u2014 and what\u2019s worse, you\u2019re destroying your self-image.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s reinforcing the self-image of someone who doesn\u2019t do what they say they\u2019re going to do \u2014 and that\u2019s horrible,\u201d Eyal adds. Ouch, this sounds familiar.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that behavior change requires identity change and so when you reinforce this bad identity \u2014 as someone who doesn\u2019t do what they say they are going to do \u2014 you\u2019re reinforcing the wrong identity,\u201d explains Eyal. <\/span>Essentially, this means you get caught up in a vicious circle of not doing what you\u2019re supposed to do and then feeling bad about it.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the issue of how to-do lists can encroach on your personal time. Incomplete tasks will play on your mind and this will stop you from enjoying yourself outside of work. How much time have you spent (aka wasted) worrying about incomplete tasks when you were supposed to be enjoying your evening or weekend?<\/p>\n Eyal believes to-do lists are nothing but another avoidance strategy. After all, the best way to avoid doing something is to make a to-do list that you can actually avoid.<\/p>\n Think about it: how many times have you written a list, color-coded it, re-organized it, categorized it, added hashtags\u2026 essentially spending more time on writing the list than actually doing your job. Do you see where I\u2019m going with this?<\/p>\n From speaking to Eyal, it\u2019s clear to me that my feelings towards to-do lists and the negative impact they have on my self-belief are totally justified.<\/p>\n I recently took to changing how I work, deciding to keep a \u201cdone list,\u201d ensuring that I write down every single task I completed and then crossing it or ticking it off. This may sound weird but it\u2019s actually helped to focus and reinforce a self-image as someone who\u2019s productive and diligent at work.<\/p>\nWhy to-do lists don\u2019t work<\/h2>\n
What you can do instead<\/h2>\n
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