Is My To-Do List a Task List or a Wishful Thinking List?

 

I love lists. I make lists at the drop of a hat.

What's our meal plan for the week? Let's make a list.
What errands do I need to run on Friday? It's on a list.
What garden projects are still waiting for me? Check the list.

But... I am starting to realize that I am not the greatest to-do list maker. I always seem to have more things on my to-do list for the day than I can ever hope to accomplish. A lot of these things don't have a firm, fixed deadline. Nor are they overly urgent. They just need to get done within the next month or so. At least, I think they do.

What I tend to do is look at my overwhelming daily to-do list with all of these extra tasks, and I will re-schedule some tasks and kick them down the road to next week, or next month or 3 months from now. And when next week arrives, I find myself doubly overwhelmed because of these kicked tasks that now drop into my day with a thud.

You see... I don't actually know that I have a "To-Do" list. Such a list has tasks with concrete deadlines and actionable tasks that I can sink my teeth into. My lists, on the other hand, tend to be "Wishful Thinking" lists. Or Hopeful lists. Or Possibility lists. Or Maybe-This-Week lists.

I think that I can get these tasks done next week. So I just kick them into next week and hope that next week looks better than this week and I'll actually get around to them. Or some of the tasks/projects have been hanging around for a few months and I think... "I really need to get to that... my not this week, I'll boot it to next week and maybe it will get done'.

Yeah. Exciting, eh? Not.

When these Maybe/Hopefully/Possibly-Today tasks show up on a specific day, I generally look at them and think... "Nope, not today... maybe tomorrow" and punt them into the future. "I don't feel like it"... "I don't have the energy for this"... "Other things are more important"... Ad nauseum...

I know how to make lists. I even know how to make to-do lists. (Or at least I think I do). I have a great to-do list app that manages all my tasks. But when this overwhelm happens and I see the same pattern of behaviour (shoveling tasks into the future)... I think I need a new system. I need a new app!!! I've gone through a lot of to-do list apps and I know that is not the answer. The one I have right now is perfectly fine. Although... maybe it needs an AI integration to help me manage things? That would be cool!! (New shiny object distracting me from actually getting things done). But I don't think it's there yet... at least not this month.

In the meantime, I need to comb through my to-do list and get real. I know that I have gotten a bit sloppy with some of my tasks and that they are too broad (more like a project than a task). So it is to drill down and identify the next actionable task for these things that I keep booting into the future.