A to-do list of mistakes we all make and expert solutions to make life easier

File your taxes, make a doctor’s appointment, book train tickets for your next vacation… As soon as you get up, you’re already reviewing all the tasks for the day. In order not to forget anything, you choose the traditional one to do list or you post the mails all over the office so you don’t have a chance to miss an important one. On paper, it’s a good idea. The process allows you to visualize tasks to “avoid memorizing everything and be more efficient and effective,” comments Diane Balonaud-Roland, founder and director of Temps & Équilibre (1). Only to do list does not always wish us only good things. And there are certain rules to follow to avoid stress and guaranteed failure.

There to do list and performance anxiety

And for good reason. If the concept serves as the royal road to getting organized and doing what we need to do, it’s not for everyone. It all depends on personality, individual needs and situations. “Some people operate more on intuition,” explains psychiatrist Jean-Christophe Seznec (2). They are a bit like ‘butterflies’ who feel imprisoned when they have to follow a predetermined list.”

The psychiatrist adds that to-do lists can lead some to what we call “performance anxiety” and cause depression and guilt when we don’t get everything done.

Choose your moment

It is not enough to mechanically list the tasks that must be done during the day for the concept to help us; the opposite. Diane Balonaud-Roland recommends setting aside 10 to 15 minutes to list your tasks and not tackling them at any time of the day. “Prioritizing is one of the most energy-saving mental activities,” he emphasizes. Therefore, it is important to take care of it when you still have all your cognitive resources available, i.e. in the morning. The fuller your head, the less able your brain is to differentiate and target the right choices.”

Prioritizing is one of the most energy-consuming mental activities. Therefore, it is important to take care of it when you still have all your cognitive resources available, i.e. in the morning.

Diane Balonaud Roland

Then having an overview of the week can help distribute tasks fairly. “You can, for example, plan your week on Sunday, and then adjust your priorities every morning,” advises the specialist.

Only 3 to 5 tasks per day

In the rush of efficiency, sometimes the list gets a little too long. A classic mistake, according to Diane Balonaud Rolland. “Taking too many tasks in the first place means setting yourself up for stress and therefore failure. Especially since we also tend not to be realistic and underestimate the time that each task will take from us.

So to avoid the trap, it would be ideal to limit yourself to just 3 to 5 tasks per day, according to the expert, “keeping 30-50% of your time available to absorb contingencies and possibly deal with emergencies.” , the expert notes.

To sort successfully, it’s also important to remember the obvious. not all tasks are equally important. So we prioritize, otherwise we risk getting lost. To do this, we ask ourselves the following question: “If I could only do one thing today, what would it be?” So the most urgent task comes first, others follow, depending on their urgency.

Cheat sheet

Finally, along with this main list, psychiatrist Jean-Christophe Seznec recommends keeping another one, a “memory aid”, whose purpose is to avoid mental overload. On it we list all our thoughts, everything that comes to mind and that we have to do. Thus, it can contain more than ten tasks, but without urgent processing of them. “We can then extract elements from it at will, integrating them, for example, into a basic to-do list,” comments the doctor.

(1) Diane Ballonad Rolland is also an author Slow Work – 10 self-study sessions to do less but do better Vuibert edition, 192 pages, €14.90.
(2) Jean-Christophe Seznec is also an author turn off your mind I read it, 352 pages, €7.80.