Using to-do lists can harm productivity. Here’s a better “to do” list to maximize effectiveness during a really volatile year.
Overview
In this post, I’ll go over how the rollercoaster of 2020–2021 has forced me to develop a new personal to-do system, and how it’s allowed me to reach more of my goals in the past year than any other productivity method I’ve used in my entire life.
Specifically, I’ll talk about:
- Problems with To-Do Lists
- The Effective To-Do List
- The Four Quadrants of task categorization
- Kanban Rules
- Key Takeaways
I’ll also be taking a systems thinking spin on this — I’ll be showing you the engineering approach I used to design my better to-do list.
Problems with To-Do Lists
Have you ever had a mountain of tasks on your list that left you overwhelmed so you procrastinated on everything?
Or equally bad, have you ever completed a mountain of tasks only to find that most of them didn’t matter towards your end goal?
I used to be the type of person that had lists as long as 30 items. I could get them all done in a single day, without a single one having a real impact on my future. On other days, I’ve slumped because I’ve been hit with a bunch of other tasks that pop up out of nowhere.
Then when the pandemic hit, a lot of things were changing in my life. I had started working for my startup, Abstract Assembly, full-time, and I began freelancing as a software developer to pay the bills.
I needed a way to (1) balance the stuff that was on my plate, (2) handle unforeseen things that came, and (3) keep me focused on the things that mattered most to me.
The basic to-do list — digital, notepad, or whatever other form it can take — is not equipped to handle life. They’re productivity killers, so a new system was needed.
The Effective To-Do List
The new system I came up with is called the Effective To-Do List. Here’s what it looks like:
The Effective To-Do List is designed to maximize personal effectiveness by classifying tasks based on urgency and importance.
Urgency versus Importance
The two columns that make up the 4 quadrants are urgent versus not urgent while the two rows are important versus not important.
Urgency and importance are not the same thing. Urgency is how soon a task needs to be done while importance is concerned with how much of an impact the task will have.
It’s subtle distinction, but tasks can look important because they need to be done soon while other tasks can look urgent because of the consequences they may have.
The Four Quadrants
Tasks are separated into 4 quadrants labelled Necessary, Effective, Distractions, and Waste. This is from a book called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (here’s a great summary of it by HubSpot).
Quadrant I — Necessary
Quadrant I is for urgent and important items. It’s where most people are focused on, but how could we not, right? These things are necessary to get done, and it’s where I exceeded at for most of my life.
But I’ve learned that staying in this zone doesn’t lead to true progress. Time is spent managing bigger and bigger problems until eventually the problems get too big.
Quadrant II — Effective
Quadrant II is for not urgent but important items. Here’s where you need to focus to be effective. Problem is, these things often get pushed to a later date because they don’t absolutely need to get done immediately.
The biggest change for me was prioritizing at least 1 thing from Quadrant II before anything from Quadrant I. This’ll ensure you make long term progress no matter what.
Quadrant III — Distractions
Quadrant III is for urgent but not important items. This is a tough one, because they’re almost impossible to distinguish from Quadrant I items. To make the distinction, you must have a good sense of your own ambitions — you must know yourself and exactly what you want to accomplish very well.
The key thing to look out for: Is it urgent because of your own goals or someone else’s?
For instance, a lot of work-related tasks could fall into both Quadrant I or III.
If you have no long-term intentions of staying with your company, or have different career aspirations than your current occupation, I’d mark work-related tasks as distractions from your true objective.
However, if your job is your only source of income and it’s required for you and your family to live, then I’d mark it as necessary since the true objective is to support your family.
It all depends on what you consider important — which stems from your sense of self.
I’ve also found that uncontrollable and unexpected events tend to pop up in this quadrant.
Quadrant IV — Waste
Quadrant IV is for not urgent and not important items. These are wasteful activities, since they don’t contribute to any goals. These are things like watching Netflix or YouTube, even reading a book can be categorized here.
But in my experience, having something in Quadrant IV serves a purpose: it allows you to take a break and re-evaluate the other activities you had planned for later with a fresh perspective. I always have 1 activity at most in this zone.
Kanban Rules
Kanban is a method of organizing tasks into different stages of progress.
A simple example is having 3 lists of tasks labelled “To-Do”, “Doing”, and “Done”. A task begins in “To-Do”. It’s only moved to “Doing” when someone picks up the task & claims responsibility for it. Finally, it’s moved to “Done” when it’s completed.
The key is to limit the number of tasks in each stage; a task may not be progressed if there isn’t any space in the next stage.
Kanban — a method from lean manufacturing & agile software development of moving tasks through stages or bins in a production pipeline.
When the day starts, I limited Quadrant I and Quadrant II to have a maximum of 3 each while Quadrant III and IV had only one each. This is to make sure I don’t overload myself — everything must be doable in that one day.
What about unexpected events, or ones that pop up during the day?
Most of the time, I’ve found that unexpected events tend to be distractions since they’re usually urgent, but not actually important. So, they’ll belong in Quadrant III and it’s ok if it doesn’t get done.
If it actually is important and urgent, it’s a Quadrant I item. But if Quadrant I now exceeds 3 tasks, one of the tasks is not as urgent as you think and must be moved (to Quadrant II, III, or off today’s list).
There is no exception to this rule. Urgency and importance are relative terms. A task can belong in different quadrants depending on the urgency and/or importance of the tasks that are already there.
Besides, you can always move it back to Quadrant I the following day.
Key Takeaways
- If you’re self-employed or have a lot of autonomy, it’s critical to have a to-do system that allows you to be effective, not just efficient.
- Basic to-do lists are often filled with tasks that don’t matter — you can get a lot done without furthering your objectives, and you might not even realize it.
- Tasks in Quadrant II — those that are important, but not urgent — are the tasks that must be prioritized for long-term growth.
- Properly categorizing tasks in terms of urgency and importance requires a well-developed sense of self & purpose.
- Using the Effective To-Do List can help develop your sense of self day-by-day based on what you end up prioritizing.
If you’re a freelancer/entrepreneur like me, let’s chat! I love meeting strangers & to talk about startups, business, and systems-thinking in my free time.
If you’re looking for:
- feedback on your ideas
- a quick, informal feasibility review
- advice on what next steps to take
Or if you just want to chat with someone in the same boat as you to get stuff off your chest, here’s my Calendly link. I’d love to chat & chill with you!
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