The Trouble with To-Do Lists: Three Traps to Avoid

I Love a Good To-Do List

I’m a whiz at creating killer “to-do” lists. I have lists for work, home, travel, and interesting things to do.

I have systems and tools, some paper and some electronic. I’ve used the Franklin system, which required a full day of training and over $200 worth of product. I’ve used Brenden Bruchard’s planning journal – and purchased dozens to share with others in my zeal. And recently I’m enamored by The Purpose Planner by Roterunner.

Yet even better than the planner or creating the “to-do” list is the joy that comes with crossing something off or checking complete on the list! Cross-offs, check-marks and at times even small smiley faces. True confession: I’ve sometimes added an already completed task to the list just for the thrill of crossing it off.

To-do lists keep me organized, focused, and productive most days. They give me a sense of agency and accomplishment. They bring order to chaos and help me remember things I will likely forget.

But there is a shadow side to my beloved to-do list.

A full list can make me feel productive when I’m simply busy. Crossing things off can give me a sense of accomplishment even when I’m accomplishing the wrong things. And on the hardest days, the list can become an indictment—evidence of everything I failed to do rather than everything I managed to carry.

Over time, I’ve discovered three traps hiding inside my to-do lists.

Because I know them, I’ll share the three traps I’ve fallen into, in the hope that you avoid them.

1. Assuming Everything on the List Matters

It’s easy to assume the items on the list are the most important, critical, and impactful. That they are worth doing. Not merely activities masquerading as progress.

To put the “right” things on your to-do list requires more than listing the day-to-day survival tasks. It takes a longer perspective, one grounded in your bigger goals and aspirations.

It is the slow, hard, deep work that underpins your to-do list and ensures alignment with your highest aspirations. It is being clear on your values, on your goals, and on the path you are paving.

If you’ve done that work – great. Keep your guiding principles front and center and continually test your to-do list against them.

If you’ve not, here’s a shortcut. As you create and review your to-do list, ask these simple questions:

• Are my actions aligned to the highest and best version of myself?

• Do these actions move me into the future I’m creating?

• Are these actions the most important things for me to focus my time and energy on?

Add activities aligned with your longer-term, higher-purpose goals on your daily list. Things like exercise, rest, or time with loved ones (or yourself). Those, in the long view, are more important than laundry, meetings, shopping, reports, or the thousand other things that make our lists.

Perhaps the most important things belong on our lists precisely because they are the easiest things to crowd out.

2. Equating Activity with Worth

This is my stickiest trap. For I live in a culture where busy is valued. Where the first question people ask is if I am busy, as if busy were the ultimate goal of a well-lived life. Where far too often, I’ve allowed my value to be measured by my effort.

Somewhere along the way, doing became more than something I did. It became evidence that I was useful, needed, contributing—perhaps even worthy.

Which makes an empty to-do list surprisingly uncomfortable.

Not all action is productive. Some actions may be productive, but are aimed in a misguided direction.

I’ve always had a hard time with being encouraged to “be” not to “do”.  For I couldn’t imagine not doing. It was unfathomable to separate who I was from what I did. And this, I continue to step into, day after day. Being more present. More open to what unfolds, rather than what is planned. Less forcing. More flowering.

“Being busy is not really being.”  - a reminder from John Paul Lederach in his book The Centuries Wrap Around Us.

As I’ve gotten better with this notion, I’ve noticed that my to-do list is shorter, more focused. And that some days (gasp), there is not a to-do list, only the white space to step into what emerges.

3. Saying Yes Before I Ask Why

A few years ago, it struck me that I’m prone to saying yes to far too many things. Someone makes a request – I step up to own it and it goes on the list. Something catches my eye and without much forethought, it makes the to-do list.

My list grew and far too many times the items were things I had said yes to out of my fear of saying no. I excelled at putting things on the list and horrible at saying no to things.

And so today, my not-to-do list has become just as important as my to-do list. And just like my to-do list, I review it daily. It helps remind me of the things I don’t want to slip back into doing with intentionality.

My current ‘Not to Do” list includes:

• Buying things that create more clutter in my life

• Holding back when I think my voice needs to be heard

• Blaming others for situations I had a hand in creating

• Judging others

• Second guessing myself

• Acting my age

• Worrying about what “others” will think

As I’ve shared the idea of a not-to-do list, here are some other items that came up:

• Talking more than listening

• Doing work that I could delegate to others

• Being too busy to take time to be with people authentically

• Rushing from one thing to another

• Ignoring my personal health and well-being

• Micromanaging

A Final Note

Maybe the measure of a good day isn't how much we crossed off. Maybe it is whether what we did—and what we deliberately chose not to do—helped us live a little more like the person we want to become.

It’s my wish for you that your to-do list:

Is in full alignment with your highest purpose and best self

Provides focus without the pressure of unrelenting activity

Reminds you of the important things you don’t want to do

And now, this blog is written. I can check that off my “to-do” list😊

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