Does your to-do list give you anxiety?

Do you feel anxious looking at (or even just thinking about) your to-do list? Does the sheer size of list overwhelm you? Is the weight of it dragging you down?

Right now we’re in the middle of cohort 2 of my four-week live program, Organize Your Life. There’s a couple dozen of us and we’ve been doing some great work and having intriguing discussions. One topic that came up is exactly this question: what can you do if your to-do list gives you anxiety?

Your relationship with your to-do list is important. With everything life is asking of you, you absolutely want to have a prioritization system. Put differently, you want to be able to see the status of your various projects, commitments, deadlines, and so on, so that you can make intelligent decisions about what deserves your attention next. And your to-do list—or, rather, your task management system—should be your primarily tool for making these decisions.

Notice that I called your to-do list (a.k.a. your task management system) a tool, though. It’s a tool. It’s not reality.

Reality is right in front of you. It’s the person you are sitting with. It’s the air you’re breathing. It’s the music you’re listening to. Reality is many things, but it definitely isn’t your to-do list.

Yet many of us treat our to-do list as reality. We let it dictate our day. (Or, if the situation is worse, we let our email inbox function as our “to-do list” and let itdictate our day.)

But our to-do list isn’t reality! It is simply a tool that helps us decide how to spend our time. And we have agency over how we spend our time. Unless something has gone very wrong, you can choose how to spend your time today. Just because an item is on your to-do list for today, doesn’t mean you actually have to do that thing. Not even if it has a deadline. You don’t have to do those things.

There are consequences to your action or inaction, of course. If you miss a deadline, bad things could happen. Then again, bad things may not happen. It depends on what we’re talking about. Very often, though, the items on your to-do list are not existential. They are not a matter of life and death. Sometimes they are, but usually they are not.

If looking at your to-do list gives you anxiety, that might be because your body is perceiving that list as far too close to a matter of life and death. You are far too identified with your list. The list is too long—you have too much to do—you can’t get round to all of that stuff today—you are behind—you are lazy—you suck—aaaaaargh! Panic!

Let’s take a breath.

And let’s remember a few simple facts:

1. You have limited time and energy.
2. There’s a functionally infinite number of things that are worth doing.
3. You will (therefore) have to choose what to spend your time and attention on.
4. (Ergo) there are lots of meaningful things you will never get around to doing.

The question becomes: what deserves your time and attention right now? Today? This week? This month? This year?

Your to-do list helps you answer these questions.

If your to-do list is “too long”, that’s not a problem. That’s just a reflection of the reality that there is always more that is worth doing than you can do. We’re not setting out to “finish” or “complete” our to-do list. We are just using the to-do list as a tool to answer: what’s next?

Stop thinking of your to-do list as reality. Stop thinking of it as an evil dictator with enormous power over you. Instead, think of it as a helpful friend, helping you choose what wonderful things to spend your precious time on. And nudging you, now and then, about the not-as-fun tasks that need doing. Which are just part of life.

Use your to-do list to make better choices about how to spend your time. Then enjoy that time. Turn life into a party.

Happy Sunday!