How I broke my “To Do” list habit

Posted on | October 8, 2009 | 2 Comments

My name is Julie Artz, and I’m a recovering list addict. Having discovered FranklinCovey’s Day Planner–and its system of Priority A, B, and C to do lists–at a rather young age, I became convinced that I could keep myself organized, spend time on the most important things, and achieve all of my long-term goals, if only my system of lists and priorities was precise and followed religiously.

Now I’m pretty sure the GTD folks (including my husband) are not going to love this post. And if list-making works for you, don’t feel like I’m asking you to change. I’m definitely not. However, I suspect that there are others out there who, like me, found that religious list-making was the opposite of productive.

I’m the kind of person who has a hard time saying no. Part of this is because I am a strong extrovert and I am energized by people and, part of it, let’s face it, is due to a narcissistic complex that makes me thrive on feeling important or like I can “save the day” when no one else can. I’m hoping you’ll be judicious with this knowledge, because I’ve just given you the secret to getting me to do just about anything.

Last year, even my judicious list making was not enough to keep my head above water. Juggling a part-time job, two children, a huge volunteer commitment, a new house, and a marriage while trying to deal with some unresolved postpartum depression and grief from the death of my father two years before left me at the breaking point. I was despondent. I felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything. And I was deeply, dangerously depressed.

Some day I’ll blog more about how I pulled myself out of that dark place, but today I want to talk about one single thing that helped me get there. My therapist (who I initially sought out to help with my grief, but who ended up counseling me on much more than that) suggested, when I admitted that I had too much to do and not enough time to do it, the absolute opposite of what I thought I needed to do. She told me to ditch the To Do list.

No way! What an idiot! Didn’t she realize that a combination of the sleep deprivation and the depression was making it nearly impossible for me to remember to get dressed in the morning? How on earth could I manage without my to do list? I agreed to try it, but I had serious reservations.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the To Do List had become a sort of evil dumping ground for me, a place where “change the cat litter” was on the same list with things like “spend time with husband” and “pay off debt.” I spent a lot of time rewriting the list, which I typically kept on a yellow legal pad on my desk, because I didn’t like it to be messy. So I was constantly reminding myself of what I hadn’t accomplished. I got so that I would lay in bed at night and think about what remained, undone, on my list, and why I wasn’t able to get more done each day. I can promise you, that didn’t help my sleep deprivation one bit.

I ditched the To Do list for a month and an amazing thing happened. I never once forgot to do something important. In fact, I started pushing back and saying no when I felt I couldn’t take something additional on instead of just adding it to the bottom of one of my endless lists. Ditching the to do list absolutely freed me from this vicious cycle and it’s probably the most concrete thing I did (besides starting to exercise) to pull myself out of my depression. I still make a grocery list before I go to the store. I still jot down a list of stores if I have several errands to run. And I will make the odd “to do before we go” list before a trip. But I make a conscious effort never to start a to do list of things to accomplish in a day.

Looking back, I am amazed at this very subtle system that I had for judging myself, tying my worth to physical tasks, and devaluing my time. Not having a to do list hanging over my head has freed me to spend leisure time reading a book or playing with the children if I so choose, even if I should probably do the laundry. The laundry still gets done, but it gets done without guilt at a later date and I end up feeling like I had a balanced and interesting day instead of a day lived in the shadow of the endless to do list.

So what do you think? Is anyone else out there ready to ditch their to do list? What system do you have for getting things done without stress or (self)judgment?

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