Are you a slave to your To Do list (or lists)? It is easy to get caught up in the list of tasks we need to accomplish, but are they the right tasks?

No one loves a To Do list more than me. The thrill of checking something off gives me a hit of dopamine and I feel it throughout my body. I remember a time shortly after getting married when my husband and I were preparing to host a few guests. We had a list on the kitchen counter and I completed something that needed to be done, however, we had not put on our list. So I wrote it down and then checked it off. He watched me do it, and then asked if I had just written something down only to check it off. You bet! Absolutely. For a couple of reasons, actually: one for the thrill of checking it off, but also so that when I replicated the list the next time, I didn’t forget this important task.

I have tons of lists. Truly. For me, however, it’s not just about the love of lists, it is more about how to not get overwhelmed and to be able to prioritize them. My lists include:

• Yearly goals

• Monthly tasks (either chunks of my yearly goals or time-sensitive jobs which need to be completed that month)

• Weekly tasks

• Business tasks

• Books to read, podcasts to listen to, Ted Talks to watch

Those are what I come up with quickly. It would become really easy to be overwhelmed by them, however, separating them is important.

Yearly goals are generally huge; we need to be able to break them down into smaller chunks or they will remain overwhelming, and often, incomplete. One of my annual goals this year is to run or walk 505 miles as part of a challenge. Starting out on January 1 thinking I need to move that far can create a sense of helplessness and impossibility, so I break it down to 45 miles a month which I further break down to 10 per week. I know the math isn’t exact, but looking at 10 miles is motivating, rather than paralyzing.

My weekly task list can grow into an unmanageable mess too, so I split it and work a prioritizing system. It’s easy to get caught up with checking off tasks and focus on the ones which are easy, but not as important, so my list has two sides: priority and everything else. I will try to pick 4-5 higher importance tasks to focus on that week and then everything else goes in a different column. Within the everything else column, I will look through it and mark the top three most important and then work through them and repeat the process. There are always incomplete items, but this way, I can at least attempt to focus on and accomplish the most important. These tasks aren’t the biggest priority, but still need to get done (pay bill, schedule dentist appointment). If I focus only on these, however, I will check a lot of boxes, but they won’t necessarily be the right ones to help me accomplish my goals.

I actually try to use this priority system for any of my task lists. I currently have a business task list (if I’m being honest, it’s a few lists), and I was feeling overwhelmed at the number of unchecked boxes, but also that they were not combined (which was purposeful as I was trying to keep them separate for other reasons), so I started looking through them and choosing the top 3-4 and focusing on those. When I get through them, I’ll re-evaluate and choose the next most important 3-4. I purposely don’t rank all of them at the beginning as I tend to add new tasks and priorities sometimes change, so I know that I can focus on my top few, and then choose another top few. Psychologically, seeing only 3-4 tasks at a time helps me not feel overwhelmed too.

It is easy to become a slave to your To Do list and focus on quantity over quality. It is important to ensure you are working on the most important items (which are often the ones we procrastinate the most given the chance). It’s also easy to look at a three page list and become so overwhelmed that you accomplish nothing. There are always things we need to remember to do, but which aren’t important to do right now. When you constantly read through those, you can become paralyzed by indecision. So, keep all the lists, absolutely, but spend time pulling the most important and time sensitive for now and focus on those and you will own your list, rather than it owning you.