To do a list or not to do one?

If ‘overwhelmed’ is your new ‘normal’ maybe it’s time for a different approach such as working out and being clear about what should not appear on any to-do list or calendar and crowd out your time. By Kate Kearins.

DESCRIPTIONS OF management activity often leave out what managers don't do. It's harder to observe and impossible to measure. But what managers don't do is significant in terms of allowing headspace and time for what really needs to get thought about and done.

Beyond the very obvious ‘we're in this business, so we don't do that', it's hard for human beings to wire out stuff. It's easier for managers to add to organisational ‘to do' lists, than to take hard decisions around what to stop doing, or not start doing.

Kevin Kruse writing in Forbes magazine asks whether readers really think Richard Branson and Bill Gates write a long to- do list and prioritise items.

He's interviewed 200 billionaires, Olympians, A-grade students and entrepreneurs about their best time-management and productivity advice. None ever mentioned a todo list.

Kruse points to three big problems with to- do lists. First they don't account for time. With a long list, we tend to go for the tasks we can do quickly and get a psychological payoff for crossing an item off the list. More complex, longer tasks often get left undone.

Second, there is no inherent distinction between urgent or important on a to- do list. “Our impulse is to fight the urgent and ignore the “important,” Kruse writes, suggesting some of us might well put off important seemingly non-urgent health checks at our peril. Rankings and priorities change over time too.

Third, while giving the illusion of control, to- do lists can contribute to stress, keeping us awake at night. “In what's known in psychology as the Zeigarnik effect, unfinished tasks contribute to intrusive, uncontrolled thoughts,” writes Krause.

“Overwhelmed is the new normal” post GFC and recession where millions of jobs (not work) were lost, opines Priscilla Claman in a recent Harvard Business Review article on productivity.

Some research has found human brains can handle only about seven options before being overwhelmed. A large number of items on the to- do list can either paralyse us or prompt us to revert to something supposedly more achievable like checking email – and ultimately add items to our list.

Some successful people who ignore lists work from their calendars, doing what they need to do in time. One commentator has called it “living in your calendar” – moving tasks off the to-do list and onto your calendar, leaving some time for inevitable crises that crop up.

It can be a bit risky when work becomes so ‘ just-in-time', we don't have time to think and process. Advocates of this approach suggest adding in think time, as well.

A different approach is working out and being clear about what should not appear on any to- do list or calendar and crowd out time – the don't do list. Low value tasks, according to Claman, are those that mean little to nothing to customers or colleagues. They are obvious candidates for a don’t- do list. Answering all emails for example. Who really has time for that? Something that is really somebody else's job – should they be doing it? Something that can be quickly automated or replaced by a standard arrangement and devolved? Change the system.

Particular times might be better to do these rethinks. Claman suggests when you start a new job, when more responsibility is added to what you already do, when there is a reorganisation and when you have done an amazing job of something and everyone is celebrating.

These are times when you have a fresh perspective, skin in the game, and reputational capital – all good times for a don’t- do check. Kate Kearins is professor of management, and deputy dean at Auckland University of Technology’s Faculty of Business, Economics and Law.