Loose sheets, sticky notes, notebooks, apps, self-emails, ... you have your own way of getting organized. So why, even though you know organization leads to productivity, do you sometimes lack discipline? You see tasks piling up and urgent matters coming in, and quickly become overloaded or lost. As a result, your performance suffers and you find yourself in a vicious circle. So that To-Dos don’t become counterproductive, we offer you an article to better understand how to use them and the tips for maintaining them over time!

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Why do we use To-Dos?

To get organized

To-Dos remain, for the most part, a personal organization tool, useful both in private life (e.g., buying ingredients to bake an apple pie, contacting insurance to insure your home, going to the florist to make your mother happy, etc.) and at work (e.g., calling the client, sending the brochure to the prospect, etc.).

In a professional setting, your managers may ask you to present your To-Do in a certain way if it is to be shared publicly. But most of the time, adopting this tool comes from a personal need, a desire to become more effective.

The person responsible for the action is most often the one who creates the To-Do. To avoid being caught off guard and to complete the tasks they committed to, they will write in advance the missions they will/must carry out as a priority over a defined period. Sometimes, they think about their task list on Friday for the following week. Other times, they prepare their To-Do the day before for the next day. And at other times, they make it at the start of the day. By anticipating their missions, they know the direction of their day or week, know exactly what their priorities are (even though unexpected items may be added), and gain confidence.

To remember

To-Dos (physical or digital) work as memory aids. They help us remember our commitments and meet required deadlines.

According to a Microsoft Windows Mobile study conducted on 8,027 people in 2008, 56% of French people make lists. A percentage that could probably be higher in 2022, at a time when people are more overstimulated and the development of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is greater.

Afraid of missing an important notification, an opportunity, a meaningful encounter, an exchange with a colleague... people react accordingly and raise their expectations of themselves and others. The fear of forgetting to carry out actions is so present among today’s population that many prefer to write down their upcoming actions somewhere.

To better manage time

Defining your missions in advance means avoiding wasting time on D-day wondering what your priority tasks are. It is also self-disciplining by setting time slots during which to focus. You set yourself 5 missions today? You could think about your time investment on each one?

To feel self-satisfaction and reward

Admit it: when you tick off (or cross out) all the boxes on your To-Do and therefore complete everything you planned, satisfaction takes over! In fact, when we finish a mission listed on our To-Do, we activate our reward circuit.

Achieving our goal creates a pleasant sensation in us, coupled with a positive feeling. That is why we are so happy when we cross out a number of boxes.

What are the limits of using a To-Do?

Lack of detail

Doesn’t it happen that you write a task in your To-Do while knowing exactly what you have to do? A few hours or days later, you are about to complete that task, but you no longer remember the subtleties. Yet you had them in mind when writing down your thoughts. You then find yourself with a vague instruction and no longer remember your original ideas precisely, logically leading to a mission execution that is not as perfect as you might have hoped.

Doing the hardest missions first

What is your strategy to get through your To-Do? Do you complete the longest and hardest mission first? Or do you prefer to start with quick ones? Both options have limits that seem important to highlight.

By choosing the first (doing the hardest mission first), you risk spending more time than planned on the long mission. As a result, you are likely to be so focused on this mission that you put smaller ones aside.

Turning to the second option (doing the hard mission later) can be tempting. It is true that it is more rewarding to see four missions completed (even short ones) rather than just one. The reward circuit mentioned earlier is more likely to activate because of quantity. However, the task initially labeled “difficult” may be perceived as harder than it really is.

Getting discouraged

Instead of lightening your schedule, To-Dos can overload it and create the impression of scattering your efforts across missions. But since no one is Superman or Wonder Woman, it is normal not to check every box set within a short period. We then see more unchecked boxes (= missions not completed) than checked ones.

The feeling of not having worked well grows, sometimes creating a mental monster and a source of demotivation. Yet the checked boxes (even if few) may concern substantial missions. Maybe you had to handle several urgencies in the same day? If so, you should feel proud of having handled these different imperatives and accept that your plans for the day are postponed.

Forgetting yourself

To-Dos can create the feeling of being an executor who chains tasks one after another, without real enthusiasm. The risk then is forgetting yourself, not giving yourself time because you do not want to be slowed down in this frantic race of actions to complete. That is the whole problem: we sometimes view To-Dos as races that must be completed quickly. But it is another philosophy we should adopt. What if we viewed daily missions more like a marathon?

Comparing yourself

Reproducing your colleague’s To-Do format, seeing that they most often manage to check the boxes they set while you do not, can be demoralizing. Instead of comparing yourself, you can ask why this To-Do template works for your colleague and not for you. You will quickly notice that the difference in your missions is the cause! Your colleague’s tasks may be very quick while yours are longer. Are you mostly waiting for validation from several stakeholders while your colleague is not? Since you have a different role from your teammate, comparison is not the best idea because it may increase your feeling of discouragement. In fact, you cannot compare the incomparable!

How can you make To-Dos a strength?

Break down one big task into several

Instead of writing “reply to client email” in your schedule, you could write “Action 1: find the information needed to answer the client’s request; Action 2: write a response email and send it.” These formulations show that the action is not only about replying to the email but also about finding relevant information to be able to reply. By specifying actions, and starting with action verbs, there will be little information loss between the moment the To-Do is written and the moment it is carried out.

Set a maximum number of tasks

Another action is to set achievable goals. Why not define a maximum number of tasks to complete in a day based on the average number of tasks you complete per day? This way, you will improve your understanding of your work management. Once the average is determined, you will have a comparison figure, allowing you to observe whether the number of tasks completed in the day is close to your capacity.

Estimate the duration of your tasks

Still to support the notion of achievable goals, you could note the precise duration of each of your tasks. This will let you quickly see whether it is a short mission (less than 30 minutes), medium duration (between 30 min and 2 h), spread over half a day, a full day, or more.

If you have one long mission, you can work continuously in a single time slot, allowing you to stay fully focused and avoid losing time due to interruptions. This is actually applying Carlson’s law, a time-management law stating that "work done continuously takes less time and energy than when done in several sessions." The best practice is then to set long time slots (max 2h30) during which the employee fully dedicates themselves to this mission and voluntarily makes themselves unavailable for other missions.

Prioritize your tasks

To gain productivity, you need to carry out your missions strategically. Some have close deadlines, thus requiring quick completion.

There is a method we often share during our Seven trainings: it is the Eisenhower matrix. This tool, initially applied in the military field, aims to make it easier to prioritize actions. These are analyzed based on importance and urgency. From these two axes, 4 types of tasks emerge:

• important and urgent ones

• important and not urgent ones

• not important and urgent ones

• not important and not urgent ones

Depending on the category your task falls into, you will adopt a specific behavior.

• It is urgent and important, so it is an action to do immediately.

• It is not urgent but important, so it is an action to schedule.

• It is urgent but not important, so you could delegate it.

• It is neither urgent nor important, so it may be better to delete it.

We came up with four different missions:

1. Create the presentation material for a client meeting taking place in one week

2. Fill in the contact details of participants who registered for your event for a D+1 follow-up

3. Brief a speaker on an activity taking place the next day

4. Order new notebooks for your teams

In 1), the one-week deadline indicates that this is not a mission to do right away and therefore it is not urgent (at least for now, because in 6 days it will be if nothing has been produced). The nature of the mission, creating presentation material for a client meeting, shows us how important it is. Consequently, planning is the appropriate approach.

In 2), the detail “D+1 follow-up” indicates urgency. However, entering contact details is a mechanical task and can easily be delegated to a team member with fewer urgencies to manage. Delegation applies here.

In 3), the temporal connector “the next day” implies urgency. If the mission cannot be carried out by another colleague, then you will do the brief yourself. Therefore, you will perform the action immediately.

In 4), no deadline is shared. If you do not place the notebook order, is it serious? Probably not! In that case, it is not a priority mission. You should ask whether it is really a priority.

See failure differently

When you do not complete all the boxes you set for yourself and want to boost your productivity, why not adopt another point of view? Train yourself to take a positive view of the situation by asking about strengths. Make [failure](https://learn.byseven.co/booklet/echec-pour-reussir) a lever to lead you to success.

Your goal is to offer your services to a well-defined prospect before the end of the month. Despite several attempts, you have not closed a “deal.” However, you started several exchanges with the decision-maker’s N-1, which is already a good start and a reason to rejoice. Compared to the starting point where you had no contact, exchanges with the N-1 are a sign of promising next steps. It is up to you to persevere and find the next steps that will lead you to the final objective.

Not succeeding in a mission within the allotted time is an opportunity to understand how to improve, to better anticipate complex situations when you have already encountered them, and to strengthen your resilience.