Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.

There’s a problem with that adage. Your body can only eat so much over a given time. The elephant will probably spoil before you make a significant dent in it.

This is no different than someone who tries to tackle an impossible to-do list. Imagine, week after week, eating and eating at this elephant. You’re digesting quite a bit, but there’s so much left. You might just be inclined to give up and quit. You’ll feel like you accomplished nothing (of value), even though you really did quite a lot of work.

No deadlines

The biggest mistake you can have with a to-do list is omitting a “due date” or deadline. If you’re to-do list looks like…:

* Write Novel
* Shovel Snow
* Cut up elephant
* Train for triathlon

…then there’s no concept of when these items need to get done. That means all these items are in the forefront at once.. or could be. A good start or end date will properly prioritize these:

* Shovel Snow - 11/1
* Cut up elephant - 11/23
* Write Novel - 12/1-3/1
* Train for triathlon - 4/1

So now, the novel is going to be written in winter. You’re going to shovel snow on the first day of November. You’ll cut up the elephant just before Thanksgiving. And you don’t need to train for the triathlon until early spring.

The deadlines serve multiple purposes. The first is, you know roughly when to do what. You shovel snow next week. You write the novel in winter. You train in spring. The other important purpose is you know when to stop. A “deadline” means that line item or project or whatever has a “drop dead” date. That means you don’t need to work on it any more. For example, if you don’t finish that novel, you don’t need to let it linger. Of course, if an item is really important and salvageable you can re assign a due date.

Too many items at once

Another related setup for disaster is having too many items at once. If you go to a buffet with the intent of eating the proprietor out of house and home, the best bet isn’t to shove everything you intend to eat all at once on a plate. No, of course it’ll look comical and you’ll never finish. At least, you won’t finish it before a lot of the food gets cold. Go up multiple times.

If you’re master to-do list is too large, it can be overwhelming. Even if you get done with what’s due now, just looking at items in the future will not only distract you, but take away from any sense of accomplishment you might get. It might help to just start your day with a small to-do list written on a piece of paper, or maybe in another file. Just look at that list until you finish. You don’t need to think or plan for the future except at the very beginning of your day, and maybe at the end of the day once you’ve finished today’s items.

Too detailed

The last disaster area is details. Too many details is when it takes more time to write down what you’re going to do than to just do it. It’s at this point where you’re writing things down just to cross them off… and as satisfying as it might be at the time, over the long run you’re not accomplishing very much.

My somewhat working system

Currently my working system takes a lot of this into account. I have one master todo list which I look at daily. I only focus on the top elements that are due in the near term, unless I have nothing due soon. Once I read that, I make a small list of things to do for the day or next block of hours. Once I’m through those (or once it’s a new day) I start over.

The whole point of a to-do list is to have things that you’ll do. Don’t make a large list if it’s undoable. It’ll wear you down and prevent you from doing the few things you can do. Start small and you can go far.