To-do lists are really about small-scale planning. Recently I did find a to-do list that I'd lost in 2010. It used to be the way I worked, and it involved items that I hadn't got around to since 2001. So, sometimes your lists can be long-term, but normally when you think about to-do lists, you're thinking about things that are days or weeks or hours, rather than years.
So, thinking about that sort of level of planning. But also, crucially, about *getting things done and dealing with doneness*, and not (inaudible) 'getting things done' in the trademark sense, but about the issue by getting things done. Okay – *to-do lists and detailed planning*. Actually making to-do lists itself can be a displacement activity. You can actually spend more time writing your lists, than you can actually doing stuff.
So, one is *beware of that*. You've probably already noticed that. However, they satisfy a really important function in creativity, or multiple important functions, but one of them is about the way in which they *clear mental space*. While things are flooding around your head, it's hard to be creative. So, there are lots of things like 'Oh, I know I should be sending that email.' blah blah blah...
You're not going to be able to do things, get on with things which require – again, whether it's visual design, whether it's coding-type design, whether it's interaction design, none of that's going to happen while you're worried about the thing that you should be doing that you haven't done yet. What a to-do list does is it puts it out on paper so you can *see it*. One is it *gives you control over it because you can see what's there*.
But also it takes it *out of your head and onto the paper*. And being on the paper frees up your head to be thinking of the creative stuff – absolutely crucial. So, that's important and we'll come back to this multiple times, but it's an *emotional management* technique. It's taking something that is problem-some and putting it out there. Now, sometimes it looks even worse when it's on paper, but at least you're in control of it. So, that's about the to-do list for whatever it is. That might be about writing to-do lists for things that have
nothing to do with your perhaps more creative elements of your task. It's just 'I need an email for this. I need to do this. I need to remember to get this from the cleaners,' or something like that. Because the other thing you do with a to-do list is to *break up tasks*. So, when you see something on a to-do list that is bigger, is big, you're instantly wanting to break it into a few smaller items, and to turn those smaller items into things on your to-do list. So, you take your big task and make it smaller.
And so, again, that sounds obvious, and how you do it depends so much on the task, I can't – you know – give; you can get some examples, but you're not going to sort of give techniques for doing that. But it sort of becomes obvious often when you write something down on that list that it's not a to-do list item; it's a *project*; it's an *activity*, and to even write the first item that you might need to do in order to achieve it
– not to necessarily plan it all out, but to think 'Well, if I'm going to do that, I certainly am going to need to be able to do this and this,' and then those go down on the to-do list and they become *achievable items*. So, this is part of the to-do list bank – just by writing things down, you're moving it from this complicated Nirvana but hard space into the fun and simple and doable space. So, that's sort of fairly obvious; I would hope it's fairly obvious, but also just knowing that you're doing that.
So, in effect – you know – I've talked about this sort of mental space, in one sense what to do – when you're planning, there's planning the creative task, but there's *planning your mental space*. And the to-do list is part of that. I've talked about clearing the decks. So, actually having your list of things and thinking, 'Actually, although I've got this big long list of things and it feels like a weight, actually I could do this one, this one, this one and this one; get them out of the way.'...
Ah! *Lightness and air* – all right? Or you just think, 'I've got all those on my list; well, actually what I'm going to do is move those and put those onto my *do-next-week list*.' So, emotionally and mentally, it's not that they've gone, but they're in the 'next week' list; you *don't* have to think about them anymore this week. This week has space. Next week might be busy; this week has space. But you're not leaving them niggling at the back of your mind, because you've dealt with them; you've scheduled them.
So, you've got these different ways – you can clear the decks; you can do stuff and get it out of the way that way, or you can put it off to the future. And particularly, this pushes things that were causing problems at the back of your mind effectively to the back of your mind. They can go away – wonderful! To-do lists and being creative, and, in fact, so much in life – it's about *emotion management*.
*If you're feeling positive, you're more likely to be creative.* It's a known thing. If you're worried, if you're constantly worried about things, it's harder – not impossible; it's harder. And in some sense, this is a more important function of your *planning for creativity* than the actual time management itself – the managing yourself, the managing your feelings. So, one thing when you've got a to-do list, *make done tasks prominent*.
One thing I used to do was I would tick things off, but I also used to have this *big red marker pen*. And when I did something, I went right through it with this big red marker pen. So, my to-do list over the day would get redder and redder. And the red here was red was a good thing; red was 'Done it! Done it! Done it'. And boy did it make you feel good to see those red marks! Sometimes I would explicitly, if I did something and it wasn't on my to-do list
– I still do this – I write it on the to-do list *and cross it off*. And it makes you *feel good*. A lot of electronic to-do lists, when you do stuff, they disappear. It's a to-do list, but actually change your to-do list into a *done list* – something that's telling you what you've *achieved*, rather than just focusing on what you need to do.
I mean, you have to do those things; it's not that they're unimportant, but make that not the heart of what happens. Make your use of that list, whatever tools you use to manage that into one that is constantly reinforcing about what you achieved and therefore creating all those positive feelings that are good for you in your life in general, but in particular are going to help you as you try to be creative.
Related to that are what I've always called *to-be-done-to lists*. There are to-do lists; those are things you have to do. But very often you've sent an email to somebody and you're waiting for a reply. You want to get on with the detailed UX design around this thing, but you need some information for something else and you're waiting for that information. Now, every time you think about that thing, it's something that should be in your mind that needs to be done
– that you need to do something often, but you're waiting for somebody else before you can do it. Now, if there's a deadline, you need to probably at some point remind them or whatever. But before that point, there's *nothing* you can do about it, and yet it's still eating up your *mental energy*. *Write it down* – well, on paper – you know – let the paper worry; let the computer system worry. So, that might be within your – if you're a diary-based person, it might be on your diary.
It might be a list of things that you're expecting from other people, when it becomes a problem if they don't appear so you can chase them. But *get it out. Don't let it clutter your head*. Get it out; get it on paper; get it on the system... Worry is gone – okay, if they don't deliver, then you can worry, but not now. Let the worries happen later. It's all about emotion work, all about emotion work.
Now, in some sense this little section is about to-do lists – it's very fine grain. But in thinking about this emotion work, I was going to also just – let's take us back out to something that's really big. If you're an independent consultant or an independent worker, you might not be involved in a management structure. But if you're in a company or if you're in any sort of organization, you're likely to have some sort of line management structure.
And you'll have probably had one of those annual progress reviews, or you might be in the position of having to do one with other people. So, they're having their review and you're the reviewer. Sometimes that's a line management, sometimes it comes outside the line management role and somebody else does it. It might be a more peer-mentoring role. Typically, when those are done the *focus* is on *your weakness or the gaps and your training needs*.
Now, part of that is a good thing: training needs analysis; what's going to help you in order to achieve your goals better, to achieve the corporate goals better, to enable you to do your job better. It is good, absolutely good. But you notice that focus is on what's *missing*. Now, focus on what's missing in order to fill it – a positive thing. But it's also about what's missing. Why not focus *strongly* – and sometimes perhaps you do a SWOT analysis, you do this;
although, again, so often in a SWOT analysis you do it but then you spend all your time looking at the weaknesses and threats. *Focus on the strengths.* So, I remember some years ago doing this where I was in the reviewer role and people coming, and the form happened to have – and they weren't related, and I think it was just an accident – but they happened to have a question which was about what the person believed their strengths were. And then there was another question, about what had happened – what were the main achievements of the previous year and what skills and attributes had been necessary for them.
And one of the things I found fascinating was to actually go through those and say, 'Here's the strength that you've said you've got. Does it match the skills that are necessary for your job?' And if not, not so much to say 'There's a skill for your job that you don't have – let's fill it.' – I mean, that's something important to say – but to actually say if somebody's got a skill or a power or an understanding – I don't mean a superpower, but in a day-to-day sense –
are we actually making the best use of that? So, have you got *skills*? Have you got *desires* that are *not being met* in what you're doing? And *what* tasks might you do that actually *better* use them? In general, *focus on what you can build from and what you can strengthen* rather than what you're failing at and where your gaps are at. That's partly because actually if you can understand what you achieve well,
(inaud.) you can achieve more, you're likely to achieve better at the same things that you achieved better at before in the future; so, that's a practical thing. It's also an emotional management thing. But of course, the two are linked because if you're feeling good, if you can feel you can achieve, you're more likely to achieve in the future. And what happens if you *don't* achieve goals? So, you wrote your things down on your to-do list; you go back to them and you didn't do them. You made your annual goals, and you come to the next year and you didn't do them.
Why not? Now, that might be because of some failing, but were there *different* things? Were there things that weren't on your to-do list that you did do? Were there goals that you didn't set at the beginning of the year that actually you achieved during the year? This happens a lot in education. So, I've seen it particularly in education – so, think about the course you're doing now – where people drop out. And drop out – 'Ah... What's your drop-out rate?' You know – for online courses, often very, very high;
for face-to-face courses, it varies at the level. But everybody worries about the drop-out rate. I don't worry about the drop-out rates; I worry about *why* something's happened. Has somebody stopped doing the course because they learned all their needs? —especially on an online course where there's no particular certification necessarily or major one at the end. You know – did they learn what they needed and now they've stopped because that's all they needed?
Have they learned that it's not the right thing for them? That actually they don't want to be doing more of it because there's probably something else for them? If it's a face-to-face course, have they got a job and therefore are doing the job and have stopped doing the course? All of these are *positive* things. So, when you look back – so, that's about doing a course, but if you look back and look at your to-do list, look at your goals, think about *what you did instead and why that worked*.
That still might lead to some negative things; you might look at what you did instead and think, 'Well, perhaps I just wasted my time.' So, that's a thing, but often it's not. Often the reason you haven't achieved one goal is because you achieved something else. And *being aware of that* rather than just – now, think again back to to-do lists versus *done lists*: What *did* you do? Not what's left to be done – you need to know about those – but let's focus and do focus as well as on what's left to be done
on *what you did do and what you have achieved*.