Is Your Task List is Preventing You from Progressing on Big Goals?

Do you feel like you’re constantly busy yet never making progress on the big goals or projects that matter most? Spoiler alert: your daily task list might be the problem.

While task lists feel productive in the moment, they often keep us trapped in short-term thinking and busywork—pushing those long-term projects further and further down the line.

In this episode, I’ll break down why task lists aren’t serving you when it comes to your big-picture goals and what you can do to fix it. With the right planning system, you can shift your focus, eliminate the overwhelm, and finally start moving the needle on what matters most. It’s time to stop rewriting the same tasks over and over and start creating plans that actually work!

In This Episode, We’ll Explore:

• Why task lists are focused on urgency, not progress
• How task lists create mental fatigue and keep you stuck
• The simple shift that ensures your big goals stay a priority
• How to plan your week in a way that eliminates the stress of daily to-do lists

________________________________

Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?
You are in the right place! Sign up for this free, on-demand training and learn how to gain control of your time no matter what life throws at you!
>>> https://www.megansumrell.com/freetraining
________________________________

Thanks for tuning in!
Megan 🩷🐝

www.megansumrell.com
www.instagram.com/megansumrell
www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee
www.linkedin.com/in/msumrell
www.onelink.to/qxdcwu

Transcript

[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered why it is that you're exhausted every single day? But you never seem to make progress on those longer term projects and goals. Well, spoiler alert, friends, your task list is the problem.

[00:00:27] Hey friends, welcome to Work Life Harmony. Today we're going to be talking about why your task list, and again, there's, there's reasons why we make task lists, right? But I want to talk specifically about why it's preventing you from making progress on those longer projects or goals. Now you've heard me talk about task lists and all the ways that they can actually cause more harm. Then good. And if you haven't listened to any of those episodes, I promise you it's because there's a better way, something that actually serves us better. And usually when I talk about some of the problems that task list cause, I've talked about decision fatigue.

[00:01:06] I've talked about keeping us focused on the wrong things, causing overwhelm, unrealistic, et cetera. But today I want to take a deep dive into why exactly this daily task list making mode actually prevents you. for making progress on longer term projects or goals. so we're going to kind of walk through this here together and I'm going to share an example, maybe, maybe a few that might, you might feel like maybe I was in your house watching as you're going about your daily life.

[00:01:38] Okay, so first, here is reason number one. Why creating this daily task list prevents you from making progress on those larger projects. You don't realize it, but what happens is when you start your day going, okay, what are all the things that I need to get done today? Your brain is instantly going into like, the next 12 hours frame of mind, right?

[00:02:02] It's thinking today, the calendar today. So let's say it's Monday morning, you're making your task list for the day, right? So you start jotting down a bunch of things. Well, your brain is not going, hang on. Let's think about that big, you know, project that we had around the house to completely declutter the guest room and get some new stuff hung up on the wall, right?

[00:02:23] It's not going there. It's thinking in this urgency of today. So 99 percent of the time, any tasks that are part of a longer term project or goal are not being included on your daily task list because your brain is instantly thinking of what are things I can get done to completion within the confines of today.

[00:02:49] So right out of the gate, those things, for most people, aren't even making it onto the task list. Now you might be going, well, hang on, Megan, my stuff gets on the list. So let's talk about some of those scenarios. you may be someone that is really good at taking a project. and breaking it down into steps, right?

[00:03:12] So back to the example of the guest room. And this was a project we, we recently took on in our house, which is why I'm using it. So maybe you're someone that actually said, no, I, I broke this all down. I wrote a detailed list of everything that needed to get happened, you know, selling some old furniture, decluttering the bookshelves, going through the closet, getting the stuff hung up on the wall, so on and so forth.

[00:03:33] And you've got all of that. Mapped out in your journal, or maybe your Trello board, or your project management system, or in a notebook somewhere. Well, when you sit down at the start of the day, to make your list for the day. Right. You likely don't have that, that detailed project plan with you to take a minute and go now, hang on, what's the next on my list of things to do with getting the guest room all fixed up.

[00:04:00] Right. That's likely in a completely different place. And it's not, you're not thinking about, let me go to that goal planning journal that I've got and see what in here I can knock out today. Our brain is already just focused on go, go, go. I'm thinking about today and today only. So either, you know, if, even if you do have that all mapped out somewhere else.

[00:04:24] You likely don't have that with you when you're making your list. Now, maybe you're saying, well, actually, Megan, I do bring it with me and I put it on my list. Okay. So let's say somehow or another, it magically does show up on your list. So let's say you look at the next step of, you know, what you're getting your guest room all done.

[00:04:46] And maybe the next step for you is hanging those four things on the wall. And so you actually write down on your task list for today. Hang the four items on the wall. I would hedge to bet that the majority of the things on your task list when you're operating from daily task list mode are going to feel far more urgent and important to you in the heat of the moment of that day.

[00:05:16] than hanging those pictures on the wall. And here's what happens when we are operating in daily list mode. After you've written your list, chances are you're feeling pretty anxious, right? You've got a long list, you're like, Oh my goodness, how am I going to get it all done? Newsflash, you most likely are not because it's probably an unrealistic list.

[00:05:40] And so, your brain does exactly what it's programmed to do. Which is it says, okay, how can I feel good in this situation? I'm feeling anxious and I don't want to feel anxious anymore. Well, it knows that the quickest way to feel good is to get something checked off that list, right? I mean, I am with you. Is there anything more glorious than.

[00:06:02] Check next to an item on your list, right? There's a reason we write, make a list first, just so we can check something off. We're giving ourselves that dopamine hit. So with that list making low mode, your brain is scanning your list saying, okay, what can I do to feel better? It's going to, by default, look for what can I get done the quickest and the easiest with the least path of resistance.

[00:06:27] Well, I promise you this, the item, hang the pictures on the guest room wall is not going to be it because you're going to look at that and be like, Oh, I got to find the hardware. Then I got to get the level and I got to measure and, oh yeah, okay. I'll do that later. All right. Instead, you're going to find something that's really, really quick and easy, like, Oh, respond to the text that I got from my sister last night.

[00:06:50] All right, and your brain is doing exactly what it's designed to do, which is to give you a win as quickly as possible. So all day long as you are navigating your list, every time, assuming you even have that item for that longer term goal or project, if it is compared against everything else on your list, chances are you're always going to keep glossing over it to be like, well, I don't have to do that today.

[00:07:18] Well, I don't have to do that today. And then what happens tomorrow? You wake up, you rewrite all the stuff that didn't get done from yesterday's list. So you're going to rewrite, hang those pictures on the wall, right? And you're just going to be rinse and repeat. And eventually you will have written, hang the pictures on the wall like 12 times.

[00:07:37] And then finally you're gonna be like, just forget it. I'm not even gonna write it down, right? Like I'll figure it out later. I'll do this next week because we just get tired of rewriting the same thing over and over and over again. So now of course this begs the question, well then what do we do? How do we make time for and prioritize time for those projects that we're wanting to work on the things that aren't emergency have twos, right?

[00:08:05] Well, if you've been following the show for a while, I'm sure you know exactly where I'm going. My friends, the secret lies in. Weekly planning, not daily list making. So here's how this could work with the example of the hanging, the pictures, right? Maybe I'm sitting down and I'm creating my weekly plan.

[00:08:26] I'm following the five step basic weekly planning process that I teach. I'm putting in my commitments. I'm marking off my unavailable time. I'm scheduling in time for myself. I'm deciding when, with specificity, I'm doing the requirements. recurring tasks. I'm blocking off time for the important projects, right?

[00:08:44] And so now at this point, I'm seeing, Oh yeah, the next step for me in that project is to get the pictures on the wall. Well, now I'm going to look at my week holistically and be like, yeah, Monday looks kind of messy. And Tuesday I'm running a lot of errands and now I start thinking, well, how long is that going to take?

[00:09:03] How much time am I going to need? And I might realize, yeah, you know, what sounds like a quick. Oh, that'll just take me five minutes. I realize, no, it's probably going to be a good 30 minutes, because there's measuring I need to do and getting the hardware and, you know, the level and all the things that may go into it.

[00:09:19] So now I'm already bringing the awareness of, I'm going to need about 30 minutes to do this. Right? When you're in planning mode, you're bringing that awareness in. When you're in task list making mode, you're not pausing with everything you write on your list to go, How long am I going to need? Right? So once I know I'm going to need about 30 minutes to do this, Well, now I'm looking at the realities of my week, and I'm, I'm intentionally making choices of, based on what I'm already doing this week, where do I see that it's going to be a good day for me to do that?

[00:09:55] And maybe I see, hey, you know what, Friday afternoon you know, from about 3. 30 on, it's a pretty quiet day. Not going anywhere Friday night. I'm just going to be around the house. That's a perfect opportunity. I'm probably going to be brain dead. I'm not going to want to be working on high creativity tasks.

[00:10:12] What a wonderful time for me to go ahead and put into my plan that Friday afternoon I'm going to make an appointment with myself to go hang those photos and won't that feel great to roll in to Friday evening with that done. Now, again, that's just an example of where it may show up on your plan, but notice just the difference in the conversation that you get to have with yourself when you are in planning mode.

[00:10:42] Versus task list mode and the reality is you may look at your week and say this is a week where I'm not going to be able to make progress on any of those longer term projects and goals at the time I'm recording this particular episode, it is a week where I have one day completely booked and then I'm gone for three days.

[00:11:06] And so with everything else, just with regular life appointments, my recurring tasks, my week was full. So I very intentionally set foot at the start of this particular week knowing this is not a week where I'm taking that next action on my larger projects or goals. And I get to feel fine with that. I'm not stressing about it, I'm not feeling bad that it's not getting done, and I'm not rewriting the same thing over and over and over again, one day after another.

[00:11:35] Instead, I will get to revisit that when I sit down to plan my following week. So if you're someone that is still married to your daily, daily to do list, I encourage you to come check out my top boot camp. I'm going to show you all the reasons why it's not serving you. Visibly show you a better solution and you can come learn all about it at thetopbootcamp.com. All right, friends, happy planning.