Ever strode purposely into a room and froze, with absolutely zero notion of what brought you there? Ever wake up in the night with a sudden jolting memory of the ten things you were absolutely intent on doing that day, and yet somehow entirely forgot? US TOO. But not, it seems, Joanna Lumley.
‘I'd like to say I've got my s*** together,’ she said recently on the Dish podcast. How? The humble to-do list. ‘There's something about a list that when you have done even the smallest thing, which might be empty the dishwasher. You can put a tick beside it, you've achieved something.’
The science of to-do lists
‘To-do lists work because our brains are terrible offices,’ explains renowned productivity coach, James Harwood. ‘We can only remember four things in our short-term memory,’ he says. ‘We need to externalise our commitments so we can review them, then use our natural ability to choose what to do, given our options – we can’t do that well in our heads.’
It sounds simple, but there is, he explains, some science to a really successful to-do list.
Taking your to-do list to the next level
Most of us stick all the jobs that need our attention on one list, jumbling up the big and small, the short and long term, the personal and the professional. That’s a start. But, says James, it’s also a headache to sort through.
‘Your future self will need to keep rethinking all the items every time they look at that list, which is inefficient and tiring,’ he says. ‘Because you know just looking at that list will be tiring, you end up avoiding it and just try to remember instead, which invariably leads to missed items and stress.’
James teaches and practices a more nuanced productivity system called, tantalisingly, ‘Getting Things Done’ or GTD. ‘It encourages a tiny bit of thinking when making your lists, to give your “future self” an easier time seeing what needs to be done and then get that into motion,’ he explains.
- First: Separate the short, quick actions you need to take from the bigger things you’re trying to complete. In the GTD system, the latter are called Projects
- Second: ‘Identify what exactly you need to do or the steps you need to take – we call these Next Actions’
- Third: When it comes to these ‘next actions’, make different lists for different contexts – so a list for home, a list for work, a list of things to speak to people, a list of things you’re waiting for others to give you… not everything belongs on the same list!
- Finally: Learn how to use a list tool to easily keep your lists with you: Outlook To Do, Apple Reminders, Google Tasks, etc.
As the founder of GTD, David Allen said: ‘Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them’. Or in the words of Joanna Lumley: ‘Love a list.’