What to do with your to do lists: 4 things to consider when tackling your list of things to do

Main points, no filter:

✅ There is not enough time to get everything done, prioritizing tasks helps us decide what to do and when.

✅ When we don’t prioritize tasks, we respond in the moment to the task that is most stimulating but perhaps not the most important.

✅ Look at your day and group your tasks/activities in quadrants based on urgency and importance

✅ Plan your day based on: urgency/deadlines, importance, personal goals, and feasibility.

⚠️ Caution!  Look out for resistance to structure and avoidance of failure

✅ CBT for ADHD is group and individual therapy re-focus and gain traction to shit done

Why prioritizing is important?

Do you have a master list of things that you would like to do? How do you feel when you look at this list. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to see all that scribble on a piece of paper and struggle to know where to start.

Realistically, most people cannot get everything on their list done. Creating a master list and then prioritizing that list helps us feel accomplished and keep forward momentum. Let’s go through step by step and see if we can make some sense out of your list.

Some times we need that extra nudge of accountability to execute our lists. Schedule a consult and see if we are a good fit. 

How to decide on priorities:

1️⃣ Urgency/Deadlines

Look at your list, what on there has deadlines or due dates. These can be things like scheduled appointments or phone calls that involve other people, or these can be things that you have assigned a deadline or time frame for. You might feel that it is important to respond to emails in 24 hours, so email correspondence takes priority in your day to be sure inbox stays manageable. You may need to submit a headcount for you child’s birthday party by a certain date or RSVP to an event. 

Here is something to consider when thinking about urgency and deadlines. If everything we do is urgent, we will spend the day putting out fires. If every email needs a response NOW or if you have a doom pile of past due reports, you will feel frantic and not have time to do things that are actually important and meaningful.

2️⃣ Importance

Consider your short- and long-term goals. What tasks on your list are aligned with those goals? Are there things that seem appealing to you or that would be nice to do one day but aren’t really in line with who or where you want to be?

Here’s where it can get a bit tricky. There might be things on your list that are important to other people, but not to you. You might have “organize pantry” on your to-do list because aesthetically pleasing kitchens are so fetch right now. But, if you stop and think about it, are clear bins in your fridge actually important to you or does society want you to think it’s important? 

Full transparency, I have a lot of clear bins in my kitchen. It’s not because they look pretty, it’s because I LOATHE taking 15 things out of the pantry or fridge to get to the one thing that is always in the back of the fridge. Every friggin time. But, if I have a pantry bins, then I am just taking one bin out to get to the stuff that’s all the way in the back. It makes me feel better and cuss less.

3️⃣ Personal Goals, Values, and Objectives

Let’s take a deeper look into your personal goals. Think about long- and short-term goals that you would like to accomplish and why. What are things that you value? Creativity, new experiences, religion, physical and mental health?  To get a clearer picture of your values, try taking this inventory from the VIA character strengths institute. Look at your list, what tasks or activities speak to those values and goals?

Give your best hours to those long term goals. If you value relationships and family, be sure to dedicate time to maintaining connections and nurturing friendships.

4️⃣ Efficiency/Feasibility

This is the more practical thing to consider. If you have a bunch of errands to run, what errands are geographically close together? It makes sense to lump those together and plan your route accordingly to make the most use of your time. This also applies to tasks that use the same tools or parts of your brain. Do work tasks during work hours then do home tasks during home hours. You may feel accomplished by doing laundry while working from home, but ultimately the switching of tasks and mindsets can actually make things take longer. The book Hyperfocus really drives this point home and cites research that supports the idea that multi-tasking does not actually work.

Consider you brain energy as well. If you feel most alert in the morning, you should do the heavy lifting then. Reconcile bank statements, write blogs, do those mentally strenuous tasks when your brain is at its best and save the “easy” stuff for later in the day when you are feeling more depleted or less focused.

Think about the tools or environments you are in as well. I try my best to create all my social media posts for the week or month at the same time. I open up Canva and create them all at once. Then, I use Meta to schedule them all at once. This way I am not switching back and forth from Canva and Meta for each individual post. This idea is especially important for an ADHD brain that struggles with transition back and forth between environments.

If you still can’t decide

Take a moment and imagine your future self. At the end of the day or week, what will you feel good about accomplishing today? Will tomorrow morning self be really thankful that you prepped breakfast and lunch? Will 8:00 pm self be glad you already washed your hair (is it just me or does anyone else shower in the middle of the day?)? Will next year self be glad you set up monthly automatic transactions into savings? Will April 2025 self be thankful for the tax document folder you set up and collected items for throughout the year?

Need help sorting your list? Schedule a consult and see if we are a good fit.

This sounds easy in theory, but beware of sources of resistance

Too much structure is too much, I want to be FREE!

A lot of times we can resent every minute of every day being planned. Who wants to live a life that is so rigid and structured? Sometimes we just want a day to do nothing. It feels so freeing to have nothing planned. I hear you.

Think about a time that you had “nothing” to do. Maybe, soccer practice was scheduled but was cancelled on account of rain. Maybe there was a rare weekend of no birthday parties, no obligations to anyone. What did you end up doing? Was it intentional or at the end of the day did you realize or feel like it was a waste?

Sometimes, when we have no intention for a time, we end up doing something that grabs our attention but may not align with our values and goals. I am not saying that every moment needs to be action packed, but I am saying that if we plan to do nothing, we get nothing done. We could plan to play a game with the family or go for a walk. We could plan to binge watch Stranger Things when it comes out. It is important to plan down time as well as productive tasks. Intentionally doing nothing feels better then realizing that you were doom scrolling for an hour when you would have much rather read a book or called a friend to chat.

Avoidance of failure

Another point of resistance is the idea that we invested time in planning out the day and then it went to shit. At the end of the day, the to do list actually got longer not shorter. WTAF.  Then on top of feeling frazzled or overwhelmed by tasks, we now feel shame and guilt that we didn’t get anything done. That inner critic is really laying into you now – asshole. Probably safer to not plan anything, then we won’t feel like a failure when we don’t succeed. I hear you.

This is where it is helpful to have a therapist as a coach. As a therapist we are trained to sit with and navigate uncomfortable feelings. That’s why we have blankets and cardigans. We are physically comfy so we can hold all this gnarly shit.

This is what sitting in discomfort looks like. Sure, you ended up spending way more time than you intended shopping on Amazon Prime Day. There were so many deals to explore. My Honey app was blowing up my inbox every two minutes, subject line “Here’s a deal you can’t miss!” It is also really disappointing that there were things that you wanted to do that did not get done. There may be people that were waiting on an email response or due dates that were missed. You let people down. While it is important to acknowledge how your choices impact you and others around you, perseverating on them gets you in a shame spiral that is not helpful. On top of that, you may continue to avoid those people or tasks because of the shame that is now attached to them.

Stretching your brain is tricky and so are emotions. Schedule a consult and see if we are a good fit.

Here are two ways to think about this:

We can see that day as a complete waste, way to go, you had a whole day to get shit done and what did you do? You read the reviews for the electric salt and pepper shaker and mulled over which one you should buy. Real smart.

Or we can look at this as some data points. You value a good deal. Emails can be distracting. We all know when Prime Day is. You showed good restraint in not buying that salt and pepper grinder until it was on sale. This data is important to shape our future plans. Now we know.

Something else I know, I am not sure who decided that making Sunday sauce with a cinnamon stick is a good idea, but don’t do it. That was a good piece of data I won’t forget. Nona is turning over in her grave as we speak.

When we take the data and make it into something useful that shows character and resilience. We can feel accomplished and use that momentum to keep moving and plan accordingly for next Prime Day. We may schedule a few hours at the end of the workday to see what went on sale, we can make a list on Amazon called “I Will Buy This if it Goes on Sale”, we are planning this so we don’t feel the pull to browse when we have a report to write.

So now what? Is CBT for ADHD right for you?

In Session 4 of CBT for ADHD we do a deep dive into your to-do list. We use real life examples to help you prioritize your to do list and get the support when you feel some resistance and avoidance come up.

CBT for ADHD is offered in group, individual, or hybrid formats, both online and in person. For the group and hybrid formats you are part of a community that offers some brilliant ideas for what has worked for them in a space that is encouraging and free of judgement. Sometimes just knowing that we are not alone helps motivate us to keep moving and get the shit done that we want to get done.

The individual format for CBT for ADHD offers customized and one on one interventions for you to get the support that you need with flexible scheduling. This may be helpful if the guilt and shame are strong or if your schedule is not consistent each week due to work or family obligations.

Read my earlier blog to get more information about CBT for ADHD or schedule a consult.