Day: August 9, 2018

As part of my morning routine, I cruise LinkedIn to find interesting articles about the workplace. One day, I came across Forbes’s 15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently and one tip stuck out to me.

Secret #3: They don’t use to-do lists.

Throw away your to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out only 41% of items on to-do lists are ever actually done. And all those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live from that calendar. “Use a calendar and schedule your entire day into 15-minute blocks. It sounds like a pain, but this will set you up in the 95th percentile…”, advises the co-founder of The Art of Charm, Jordan Harbinger.

Now, I don’t subscribe to this entirely. I still use a physical to-do list because writing down my tasks helps commit them to memory and prioritize what needs to be done. However, I do schedule my to-dos, and let me tell you, it’s a game-changer.