How Writing To-Do Lists
Helps Your Brain (Whether Or Not You Finish Them)
For a long time, I resisted to-do lists. I wanted the flexibility.
I felt that if I kept a list, it would tie me down to a particular set of
tasks. Gradually, though, I came around. The busier my work life became, the
more crucial it was to have some sort of running agenda on hand. Before long, I
even started adding some of those items onto my weekly calendar. In other
words, I'd reluctantly become a planner.
Looking back, it shouldn't have been so difficult. In fact, there
are at least three psychological benefits to the simple act of drawing up a
list of top-priority tasks—whether or not you actually accomplish them.
Keeping a list of tasks you
need to perform is like taking notes when you're reading a book or listening to
a lecture. When you take notes, you need to filter external information,
summarize it in your head, and then write it down. Many studies have shown that note taking helps us
distill the information we hear and remember it better than we would if we'd
just heard or read it.
Your
brain decides which pieces of information to hang onto for later, partly as a
result of how much work you do to them up front.
Writing a to-do list is a similar mental experience. Even if you
first spend some time thinking about the tasks you have to do, the act of
drawing up a list and prioritizing the items on it forces you to do a little
extra work.
This matters. Your brain decides which pieces of information to
hang onto for later, partly as a result of how much work you do to them up
front—so the more you mentally manipulate a piece of information, the better
you'll remember it. That's why it's sometimes surprisingly easy to remember
what's on your to-do list even when you aren't looking at it.
For most people, the
challenge at work isn't keeping busy hour by hour or day to day, it's making
sure we get the big-picture projects done that make work fulfilling. These are
often broad, abstract goals that you hope to achieve over a period of weeks or
months. The problem, though, is that they're hard to achieve without breaking
them into a coherent set of concrete actions you can take on a
daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Suppose you're trying to write a book. You can’t do that without
taking the time to do research first, then put in the hours writing, and
finally spending time editing what you've written. All that takes time, and
keeping an agenda of all the little "sub-goals" that will take you
toward the larger, more abstract one can help you actually get you to a
finished manuscript you're proud of.
As you think through these
smaller tasks, other steps will often occur to you—some that you hadn't
originally envisioned needing to take when you first set your overarching goal.
They weren't obvious until you actually thought about
everything it would take to reach it. So even if your agenda changes in
practice as you work toward your objective, the process of thinking ahead about
the steps involved can help prime you to do the work ahead.
To-do lists go unfinished for lots of reasons. Workplaces are
distracting and full of unforeseen events. The daily flow of email and team
messaging tools regularly threaten to drown out other activities—and that's not
to mention the meetings you're constantly getting pulled into.
But once you write down the tasks you need to perform, you then
have to clear space in your day to put some of those tasks onto your calendar.
This calendar maintenance is itself a useful exercise for fighting the tide of
interruptions you're always facing. It pulls your brain out of a reactive mode
and forces you to think about the long term. Plan your to-do activities a few
weeks ahead when your calendar still has some blank spaces in it. Add in time
for the tasks that are crucial for achieving those long-term goals.
You may also find you don't have enough space in the calendar to
make that happen—and that's okay, too. When that happens, it's a good sign that
you've been loaded down with other, less-important jobs that are crowding out
your most important work. And chances are it was difficult to see that before
sitting down to manage your calendar.
If you have control over your own schedule, it may mean it's time
to reprioritize the major elements of your workday. If your schedule is driven
by someone else’s requirements, then use it as Exhibit A in a meeting with your
supervisor, and try and press for some changes. Lay out the key goals you want
to achieve and point out how little time there is in your schedule to make
those happen. Maybe you can delegate some things to free you up.
But the point here, anyway, is that you can't do any of this
without first jotting down a to-do list. So even if it isn't that well
organized and some of the items on it fall through, you'll still have managed
to step out of the normal flow of things. That way, you'll be able to look
ahead to uncover whatever might be getting in your way that you couldn't see.
And that may be more important, in the long run, than crossing an individual
task off of your list in the short term.
ART MARKMAN
https://www.fastcompany.com/3063392/your-most-productive-self/how-writing-to-do-lists-helps-your-brain-even-when-you-dont-comple
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