To-do list

What It Means

A to-do list is a written record of the tasks you mean to do, checked or crossed off as you finish them. It can live on paper, in an app or beside your calendar, and it can cover one day, one project or everything on your plate. How much it helps depends on what goes on it and in what order, because a list that only grows turns into a record of what's still undone.

How People Say It

• "It's on my list."
• "I just need to get through my to-do list today."
• "Can you add milk to the list?"

The Breakdown

How to write one that works

1. Write down everything you need to do, without sorting it yet.
2. Break any big item into steps you can start, so a vague line such as "Get ready for the holidays" becomes the separate jobs it takes (Buhata's own suggestion).
3. Split what you wrote into three lists, as a Harvard Business Review tip suggests: important work with no deadline, what has to happen today, and a not-to-do list of things you've decided aren't worth your time.
4. Keep today's list to a few items, and leave the rest on the longer lists (Buhata's own suggestion).
5. Put a star next to the items that must get done today, and start with those (Buhata's own suggestion).
6. Give important work a time on your calendar as well as a line on the list.
7. Before you stop work, move what's left to tomorrow or cross it off for good.

Short version to try today. Write every open task on one page, circle the three that have to happen today, and copy only those three onto a fresh list.

Good to Know

A long list mixes urgent jobs with important ones. Harvard Business Review's article on focusing on what matters suggests sorting tasks on two questions, how important they are and how urgent they are, in a two-by-two grid, so you can decide what to delegateDelegationHanding a task, and the authority needed to finish it, to someone else, while you stay responsible for the result. See more, drop or put off. The not-to-do list is useful here too: writing down what you've decided to skip stops it creeping back onto today.

Related Terms and Categories

• Brain dump

  Writing down everything on your mind, tasks, worries and ideas, in one sitting so you can sort it afterward instead of holding it in your head.

• Eisenhower matrix

  A four-box grid that sorts tasks by two questions, whether each is urgent and whether it's important, to decide what to do now and what to plan.

Productivity methods and focus