how to organize your life to get things done

To regain some control of my rapidly expanding to-do list’s population, I sorted it into sub-lists: But I didn’t want to exterminate them all, either. There was no way I could eat all my frogs at once. It grew out of hand faster than Australia’s population of invasive cane toads:Ĭome to think of it, this analogy gives new meaning to Brian Tracy’s famous Eat That Frog productivity advice. Not all my to-dos needed to be done that day or the next, so soon came the next evolutionary step of my system for structuring my life:Ĭreating a separate list of future to-dos.

A more realistic idea of how much I could accomplish in a day.

Ability to break vague objectives into multiple actions, each with their own to-do.

Motivation to get dopamine-hit rewards from checking off items.

Wasting less of my limited brainpower remembering my to-dos.This simple evolutionary step had multiple benefits:

And when I didn’t get through everything, I copy-pasted the leftovers to the next day. I’d start my day with a few to-dos, then tack on others as they came to mind. Once I got used to writing what I did, the natural next step of my life-organization system’s evolution was to note down what I wanted to do.

How to organize your life to get things done