Free To Do List Templates

General tips for successful to do lists

“The list is the origin of culture. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists.”

-Umberto Eco

If all to do lists worked simply because you wrote them down, none of us would have any productivity issues. We could plop ourselves down in front of a piece of paper, plan out our day, and get right to work. Just one problem: Anyone who’s ever tried it knows it’s not that simple. 

So how do you create a successful to do list? Here are 5 key characteristics you should keep in mind when creating one of your own:

1. Keep it simple

Without simplicity, a to do list just becomes another chore! How do you keep things easy? 

For Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company, simplicity means restricting his entire list to one sticky note. That leaves him room for about three to five high-priority tasks. 

If your to do list includes 20 columns and 100 rows, you’re taking on too much. Scale back and try again.

2. Make it actionable

If your to do list looks like a compendium of New Year’s Resolutions, it’s off the mark. You need to assemble the high-impact action items you can measurably accomplish in one day. “Be nicer” is great advice, but it’s not an item you can easily cross off.

A good rule of thumb? Use action items that you can measure with a number, even if that number is only one. Don’t just “run.” Run one lap. Don’t just “work on a new project.” Spend 30 minutes on that new project. Don’t “be nicer.” Write “pay someone one genuine compliment.” Without actionability, it’s difficult to cross an item off the list. It becomes a guess rather than a schedule.

One of history’s most famous list-makers, Benjamin Franklin, even assigned numbers to abstract concepts like practicing “prudence.” 

Another helpful tip? Start each item on your list with a verb. It’s a lot easier to figure out what you need to do when your list says “provide feedback on quarterly report” instead of just “quarterly report.” 

You can put anything you want on a to do list—even abstractions—but chances are, it won’t get done until you make it actionable.

3. Prioritize flexibility, but write it in advance

Some people prefer to create their to do lists the day before. If you want, you can even make that the last thing you do at work: Go over tomorrow’s schedule and create a plan.

Will plans change? Of course. They always do. But your plan isn’t flexible until it’s written down, either. Create a plan of action well in advance so that if you need to adjust it, you’re not doing it blindly. 

4. Restrict your tasks to what you can accomplish today

In Dale Carnegie’s classic book, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” he advised living in “day-tight compartments.” The concept is similar to water-tight compartments designed to prevent flooding in boats.

Any to do list worth its salt is only composed of what you can realistically accomplish today. If you start thinking about Thursday or next week, you’re only going to increase those feelings of overwhelm. 

What about those big-time projects that require weeks and months of effort? Break them up into tasks you can complete today. Doing so helps avoid the Zeigarnik effect. 

This is the same effect at work when a song sticks in our head. Our brain knows we’ve left something unfinished, and will keep bugging us until we do something towards resolving it. Combat this by completing an individual unit of a larger project. When you check the item off at the end of the day, you’ll create a clear barrier between work time and personal time.

5. Avoid busywork and reflect on what you did

To do lists are satisfying when we check off our items and avoid the Zeigarnik effect like we just mentioned. You’ll know you did it well when you can log off for the day and feel content about how much you accomplished.

But what if you didn’t accomplish that much? Will you really feel satisfied because you ticked off some meaningless boxes on a piece of paper? 

The solution is to prioritize. In one example, a psychologist speaking at the Pentagon asked a room full of military leaders to describe their approach to strategy in 25 words or fewer. Most couldn’t do it.

But one could: the lone woman in the room. And her strategic approach was brilliant in its simplicity:

• First, she wrote down her list of priorities. 
• She ranked those priorities: first, second, third, and so on.
• Finally, she would cross off everything after the third-highest priority.

That cuts straight through the busywork, doesn’t it? True—your highest-priority items might be difficult. But if you chunk them down into bite-sized pieces, you’ll end up with a to do list that accomplishes more in less time. By 5 p.m., the most difficult, highest-priority tasks will be done.

As the ancient legend goes, there was a complex knot attached to a prophecy: whoever figured out the knot would rule the world. Alexander the Great took one look at it, drew his sword, and sliced the knot in half. That settled that.

If your daily schedule is your version of the Gordian knot, then a to do list template is the sword that cuts through the clutter. 

By filling your list with achievable, actionable items—ranked from highest to lowest priority—you can avoid the stress that comes from schedule management. Most importantly, you’ll have an answer to the most important question of the workday: What’s next?