3 Reasons To Do Lists Stink (And Why You Should Timebox Instead)

오디오 자막 자동 생성

• 00:02 - 00:02

  Hi, everyone.

• 00:03 - 00:04

  My name is near a all, and I am excited

• 00:05 - 00:08

  to share with you a little known piece of insight

• 00:09 - 00:12

  that comes to us from the psychology community around three

• 00:12 - 00:16

  reasons why to do lists stink and are destroying your

• 00:17 - 00:17

  personal productivity.

• 00:18 - 00:21

  And most importantly, what exactly do we do instead of

• 00:21 - 00:22

  keeping to do list?

• 00:22 - 00:24

  All right, so let's dive right in.

• 00:24 - 00:27

  I'm gonna share with you a research back technique that

• 00:27 - 00:30

  has been found in thousands of studies to be much

• 00:31 - 00:32

  more effective than keeping it to do list.

• 00:32 - 00:34

  Now, let me qualify this just a little bit.

• 00:34 - 00:37

  I'm not talking about writing down the things that you

• 00:37 - 00:38

  want to accomplish for your day.

• 00:38 - 00:38

  That's fine.

• 00:39 - 00:42

  The problem here is when we run our day when

• 00:42 - 00:44

  we wake up in the morning and we say, Oh,

• 00:44 - 00:44

  I'm not sure what to do.

• 00:45 - 00:45

  What do I do?

• 00:45 - 00:47

  Let me look at my to do list that has

• 00:47 - 00:51

  been shown to be a very unproductive way to run

• 00:51 - 00:51

  your life.

• 00:51 - 00:53

  And a much better way to run your life is

• 00:54 - 00:57

  to use what's called making an implementation intention, which is

• 00:57 - 01:00

  just a much fancier way of saying planning out what

• 01:00 - 01:03

  you're going to do and when you are going to

• 01:03 - 01:03

  do it.

• 01:04 - 01:08

  Now, why is time boxing so much better than using

• 01:08 - 01:11

  the to do list Time Boxing uses this technique of

• 01:11 - 01:14

  making an implementation intention to tell yourself and the world

• 01:15 - 01:18

  potentially how you want to spend your time basically putting

• 01:18 - 01:20

  down in your counter exactly what you want to do

• 01:21 - 01:23

  and when you were going to do it exactly as

• 01:23 - 01:26

  psychologists tell us to do in these thousands of peer

• 01:26 - 01:29

  reviewed studies that have found that time, boxing is a

• 01:29 - 01:30

  highly efficient technique.

• 01:30 - 01:33

  Now to talk about why time boxing is so much

• 01:34 - 01:36

  better. From a productivity perspective from a well being perspective

• 01:37 - 01:40

  and a life satisfaction perspective, we have to compare it

• 01:40 - 01:42

  to what for many people is the next best alternative,

• 01:43 - 01:45

  which is making a to do list.

• 01:45 - 01:47

  And so I'm gonna share with you a few reasons

• 01:47 - 01:49

  why to do list don't work.

• 01:49 - 01:51

  That is, running your life with a to do list

• 01:51 - 01:53

  is not a good strategy for you and why keeping

• 01:54 - 01:55

  a time box calendar is so much better.

• 01:56 - 01:58

  The first thing we have to realize is that if

• 01:58 - 02:00

  we want output in our day.

• 02:00 - 02:03

  We have to have input, right?

• 02:03 - 02:04

  If you go to the baker and you say, Okay,

• 02:05 - 02:06

  I need you to bake me 100 loaves of bread.

• 02:07 - 02:08

  The baker's gonna say Sure, but I need flour.

• 02:09 - 02:09

  I need salt.

• 02:10 - 02:10

  I need yeast.

• 02:10 - 02:13

  I need the input in order to make the output.

• 02:14 - 02:17

  Well, as knowledge workers, what exactly is our input?

• 02:18 - 02:19

  We know our output are output.

• 02:19 - 02:23

  Is the reports and the assessments and the preparation all

• 02:23 - 02:24

  things we have to do to do our job.

• 02:24 - 02:26

  But what exactly is the input?

• 02:27 - 02:29

  Well, the input is only two things.

• 02:29 - 02:30

  It is our time.

• 02:31 - 02:32

  And it is our attention.

• 02:33 - 02:35

  That is all that's required to do our job, time

• 02:36 - 02:37

  and attention.

• 02:37 - 02:40

  And if we can manage those two things, we will

• 02:40 - 02:41

  be able to get our work done.

• 02:41 - 02:45

  The problem is that to do lists have nothing to

• 02:45 - 02:45

  do with input.

• 02:46 - 02:47

  It's all about output.

• 02:48 - 02:50

  It's all about checking off those boxes to make us

• 02:51 - 02:52

  feel like we're accomplishing things.

• 02:52 - 02:55

  But in reality, the first problem with to do list

• 02:56 - 03:00

  is that they prioritized the easy and the urgent, not

• 03:00 - 03:01

  the important.

• 03:01 - 03:03

  So if you wake up every day and you say

• 03:03 - 03:04

  what I have to do today and you look at

• 03:05 - 03:05

  your to do list.

• 03:05 - 03:07

  If you're anything like I used to be, I should

• 03:07 - 03:10

  do the easy stuff in the urgent stuff at the

• 03:10 - 03:11

  expense of the important tests.

• 03:12 - 03:14

  And that is terrible for your productivity, because your schedule

• 03:15 - 03:19

  should be run by your calendar, not what is next

• 03:20 - 03:20

  on your to do list.

• 03:21 - 03:22

  So if you wake up and say or what I

• 03:22 - 03:23

  do, let me look at my to do list.

• 03:23 - 03:26

  You will most likely do the urgent and the easy,

• 03:26 - 03:27

  not the important.

• 03:27 - 03:30

  So run your life with a calendar, not with a

• 03:30 - 03:30

  to do list.

• 03:31 - 03:33

  Now the other reason that to do us are so

• 03:33 - 03:37

  harmful is that they kill your enjoyment of leisure time.

• 03:38 - 03:38

  Let me ask you something.

• 03:39 - 03:40

  If you're the kind of person like I used to

• 03:40 - 03:43

  be, that keeps a to do list, ask yourself, When

• 03:43 - 03:46

  was the last time that you finished everything on your

• 03:47 - 03:47

  to do list?

• 03:48 - 03:49

  If they're anything like I used to be, the answer

• 03:49 - 03:50

  is never.

• 03:51 - 03:53

  We never seem to finish everything on her to do

• 03:53 - 03:55

  list, and so why is it that we keep using

• 03:56 - 04:00

  this faulty productivity tech tactic that day after day doesn't

• 04:01 - 04:03

  work. If you bought a new phone and you got

• 04:03 - 04:05

  at home and then you found that day after day,

• 04:06 - 04:08

  it crashes, then you take it back to the store

• 04:08 - 04:11

  and say this is defective and yet to do list,

• 04:12 - 04:14

  we're told, are supposed to help make us productive and

• 04:14 - 04:15

  help us get things done.

• 04:15 - 04:17

  And yet, day after day, they crash on us.

• 04:18 - 04:20

  We're not able to finish everything we say we're going

• 04:20 - 04:23

  to dio and the rial travesty here is that even

• 04:23 - 04:25

  when we come home and all we want to do

• 04:25 - 04:28

  is just relax and play with our kids or watch

• 04:28 - 04:29

  something on Netflix and peace.

• 04:30 - 04:33

  Even then we cant even enjoy our leisure time because

• 04:33 - 04:36

  we're too busy thinking about all the things we didn't

• 04:36 - 04:37

  finish today.

• 04:37 - 04:39

  And so this is another reason why to do list

• 04:40 - 04:43

  that this technique is so ineffective is because even when

• 04:43 - 04:45

  we want time to relax, we're constantly thinking about something

• 04:46 - 04:49

  else. So we have to stop measuring ourselves based on

• 04:49 - 04:52

  what we ticked off on our to do list some

• 04:52 - 04:54

  box that we get the little dopamine rush of getting

• 04:55 - 04:57

  things done, as opposed to thinking to ourselves what's most

• 04:58 - 05:01

  important, putting that time on our calendar and allowing ourselves

• 05:02 - 05:05

  to just do that to measure ourselves, not by how

• 05:05 - 05:07

  many boxes we ticked off on our to do list,

• 05:07 - 05:09

  but rather by a totally different metric.

• 05:10 - 05:14

  Which is, Did you do what you said you were

• 05:14 - 05:17

  going to do for as long as you said you

• 05:17 - 05:17

  were going to do it?

• 05:18 - 05:18

  And it's up to you.

• 05:18 - 05:20

  It's not up to me or anyone else to tell

• 05:20 - 05:21

  you how to spend your time.

• 05:21 - 05:23

  But the point here is that whatever it is you

• 05:23 - 05:25

  say you're going to do with your time, whether it's

• 05:25 - 05:28

  work on that big report, read that book, Play with

• 05:28 - 05:30

  your kids, watch Netflix or play a video game.

• 05:30 - 05:33

  It's fine, as long as that's what you plan to

• 05:33 - 05:34

  do in advance.

• 05:35 - 05:36

  That's the essence of time.

• 05:36 - 05:39

  Boxing is to know in advance how you are going

• 05:39 - 05:42

  to spend, spend your time and then follow through without

• 05:43 - 05:45

  distraction. So remember, the rule I want you to remember

• 05:46 - 05:48

  is that you cannot say that you got distracted from

• 05:48 - 05:52

  something unless you know what you got distracted from.

• 05:52 - 05:55

  So if you find yourself day after day, week after

• 05:55 - 05:58

  week, not finishing everything under to do list ask yourself,

• 05:59 - 06:01

  Did you know how you wanted to spend your time?

• 06:02 - 06:05

  Common sense would tell us that everything is a distraction

• 06:05 - 06:07

  unless we know what it distracted us from.

• 06:08 - 06:10

  So we have got to plan our time in advance

• 06:10 - 06:14

  or we can't complain about getting distraction, which means we

• 06:14 - 06:16

  have to plan out every minute of our day.

• 06:16 - 06:18

  Now, I know this can intimidate a lot of people.

• 06:18 - 06:20

  Oh, I don't know if I want to be so

• 06:20 - 06:21

  rigid and plan every minute.

• 06:21 - 06:22

  Doesn't that seem like a lot of work?

• 06:23 - 06:25

  It can be a little a little intimidating, but let

• 06:25 - 06:30

  me tell you, you will receive back countless multiples of

• 06:30 - 06:33

  the time you invest in this simple process of making

• 06:33 - 06:37

  a time back box calendar in gain productivity, you will

• 06:38 - 06:42

  gain at least minimum of an extra hour every single

• 06:42 - 06:44

  day by simply using this technique of time.

• 06:45 - 06:45

  Boxing your counter.

• 06:46 - 06:46

  What's that worth?

• 06:47 - 06:49

  You what you would you give how much is how

• 06:49 - 06:51

  much money would you pay to have an extra free

• 06:51 - 06:54

  our to play with your kids to get ahead on

• 06:54 - 06:56

  that project, to do whatever it is you want to

• 06:56 - 06:59

  do with your time simply by investing maybe 2030 minutes

• 06:59 - 07:01

  in making a time box calendar.

• 07:02 - 07:04

  Now I've made a special tool for you at my

• 07:04 - 07:06

  blawg, which is near and far dot com.

• 07:06 - 07:09

  Forward slash schedule Hyphen maker.

• 07:09 - 07:12

  This is where you can get started right away to

• 07:12 - 07:14

  make your first time box calendar, and I walk you

• 07:14 - 07:16

  through the entire process to get started.

• 07:16 - 07:18

  I hope you'll check that out and so that you

• 07:18 - 07:22

  can finally become in distractible by turning your values into

• 07:22 - 07:25

  time and by making time for the traction in your

• 07:25 - 07:27

  life. Thank you so much.