A small shift that helps you to focus on the important

The focused to-do list

To-do lists are great, they tell you what to do now and later, you don’t have to think about it. It liberates your working memory that can now be dedicated to more important tasks, instead of remembering tasks.

You may manage to complete 80% of your to-do list a day. But we only have a certain amount of time and energy to invest in completing tasks per day. We tend to do what is less demanding first and therefore may fail to complete the important ones.

Our mind strives for the path of the least resistance. It is like an algorithm running in our subconscious without us noticing it.

To-do lists lack something, we do indeed stay occupied completing some tasks, but that doesn’t mean that we are productive. So how to fix that?

Clarity

When having a lot of tasks, how do you know what to focus on first? One way of making your to-do list more focused is adding the element of clarity.

The idea of clarity is to decomplexify and provide you with a structure that guides you into focus. Complex tasks divided into smaller sub-tasks are more approachable.

One way to achieve that is by working with priorities.

Divide your piece of paper into horizontal columns. Each column has a name: let it A, B, C, D… or I, II, III, IV… Each of these names represents a tier of priority.

A or I are your top priority task, these are the one that must be finished within a day. Or how Pablo Picasso has put it:

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

The second column is also important, but postponing by one or two days is all right. C tier could be what you should finish within a week. So it continues until you reach the level that contains insignificant tasks.

Feel free to add as many columns as required.

When filling your columns, restrict the amount to two to four tasks per tier. If a certain amount of tasks if exceeded the positive effects of this structure, diminish.

That is what I call the focused to-do list.

As the todo list liberates your mind to some degree, the focused todo list extends it by taking away your thoughts about the organization of the task and the act of figuring what to think about first.

That concept will allow you to focus on what matters. Don’t waste your mental energy on first having to figure out what to focus on.

Procrastination

We procrastinate to counteract a feeling that falls into the sensation of disgust. We find ourselves confronted by tasks that make us feel bad, a sort of blockade is hindering us from starting. Although we are aware that we must start and complete it sooner or later.

Our mind starts wondering, finding arguments to do something else first, something that we can accomplish with more ease. Finding this substitute rewards you with a positive feeling. We may end up watching our favourite series and feel content during it. This positive feeling involved makes it easier for us to fall for the temptation of procrastinating each time.

The focused to-do list can help here.

Procrastination can also be done by doing the less demanding task of our to-do list, like domestic work.

Prioritize and convince yourself that you can only proceed to B or C tier if level A is cleared. This prevents you from postponing on A tier task by finishing less demanding ones first.

Ordering your task by importance is a certain act of reflecting on them.

Take some minutes at the end of the day to reflect and plan for the next days. Ask yourself, what went well, or what hold me back and stopped me from completing them. The readjustment is crucial to keep your goals realistic and attainable. While doing so you already activate your mind to figure out how to solve it before having started. It initiates the process of focus.

Attention residue

Each time we interrupt one task by doing another a phenomenon called Attention residue kicks us. While working on the subsequent task, our mind is still engaged in the preceding one. It takes a while to completely shift your attention. The same applies to work simultaneously on multiple tasks. Moreover are we are switching rapidly from one thing the other when multitasking.

If you know beforehand that certain task will only take a couple of minutes, prevent them from interrupting other tasks by chunking them. In this way, you can prevent multitasking and become more focused.

Time restriction

Adding the element of time in the form of a deadline allows you to adjust your focus onto the important tasks. Knowing that only 2 hours are left to finish a task will let you focus on the most important aspects of it rather than bothering about mindless details.

“The moment you put a deadline on your dream, it becomes a goal.”

— Harsha Bhogle

It forces you to utilize the 80 20 rule without being aware of it. In the reverse having infinite time leads to unnecessary postponing and prevents progress.

In conclusion

• The clearer defined the easier it is to focus on a task.
• Set your priorities.
• One task at a time.
• Finish the prioritized tasks before bothering others.
• Time restriction helps you focus on the most important aspects.

So give it a try. I’m pretty sure, after some days you can see results. Feel free to let me know if you had such positive experiences applying it as I do.