Author: Margaret

Here’s the interesting thing about to-do lists– once you’ve finished everything on the list due for that day, it can be hard to keep going and working on other tasks. If you don’t really use to-do lists, this may be a foreign concept. Either you have no idea what you have to do, or you work on things as they appear until they are done (or some combination of those). But perhaps you understand what I mean. Some days you can do so much, and no more.

I’ve carefully tagged and categorized my to-do lists for all the projects I’m working on (and daily life) using Remember the Milk, and have gotten in the habit of going over a “due: tomorrow” list the night before. I set my priorities and make sure the workload is manageable. This has several possible outcomes. I don’t get everything done and feel terrible about it. I don’t get everything done and feel just fine about it. I get everything done in the exact amount of time I’d planned. Or, somewhat unusually, I get everything done early. The point of tagging your to-do list is that when you have some extra time, you can do more tasks in the time and space you have at your disposal.

Except… well, some days you have some spare time, but no spare ambition. Maybe this is something to do with warm weather, or vitamin deficiencies, or the culture of distraction. But maybe it’s just time to be spontaneous. For instance, I couldn’t bear to look at my to-do list after a certain point today. I had done everything I could do on the list at home (more to do at work), and while I had access to all manner of communications equipment and a solid hour, I did not search my list to find tasks that met those criteria. I went for a bike ride and read a book, neither of which were on my list.

And in some ways, isn’t this the point of productivity tools? Sometimes it’s just better to finish early, forget the tools, and enjoy life.

I lie though, since “Write a blog post” was on my to-do list.