Reasons why millionaires don’t use to-do lists

Do you think Steve Jobs paused several times a day to look upon a task list and asked himself, "What do I do next?" Or that Mark Cuban maintains a long list of to-dos that he sorts by priority? A productivity study conducted last year, which interviewed working professionals, billionaires, self-made millionaires and successful entrepreneurs, says almost no one talked about a task list. It turns out that keeping a to-do list doesn’t actually work and is a mental burden. According to research conducted by Walter Chenv, founder of management app iDoneThis and its chief creative officer, Janet Choi.

-41 per cent of to-do list items are never completed.

-50 per cent of to-do list items are completed within a day, many within the first hour of being written down.

-Why the lists rarely work

To-do lists have become the graveyard of important but not urgent tasks. Why? First, a to-do list doesn’t account for time. When we have a long list of tasks, we tend to tackle those that can be completed quickly in a few minutes, leaving the longer items left undone Second, and similar to the first problem, to-do lists make it easy to work on the urgent instead of the important. Third, to-do lists contribute to stress. In what’s known in psychology as the Zeigarnik effect, unfinished tasks contribute to intrusive, uncontrolled thoughts. It’s no wonder we feel so overwhelmed in the day, but fight insomnia at night.

-Switch to the calendar

So if highly successful people don’t have a to-do list, how do they get everything done? The productivity study indicates that ultra-productive people don’t work from a to-do list, but they do live and work from their calendar.

Dave Kerpen is the co-founder of two successful startups and the bestselling author of Likeable Leadership. Asked to reveal his secrets for getting things done, he replied: "If it’s in my calendar, it will get done. I schedule out every 15 minutes of every day to conduct meetings, review materials, write and do any activities I need to get done."

Chris Ducker successfully juggles multiple roles as an entrepreneur, bestselling author and host of Thze New Business Podcast. His secret?"I simply put everything on my schedule. Bot tom line, if it doesn’t getscheduled it doesn’t get done."

-Manage the calendar

There are several key concepts to managing your life using your calendar instead of a to-do list.First, make the default event duration in your calendar only 15 minutes. Ultra-productive people think in minutes, not hours. Begin to schedule things in 15-minute blocks, stringing several blocks together when necessary.

Second, time-block the most important things in your life first. Don’t let your calendar fill up randomly by accepting every request that comes your way. Get clear on your values and goals and pre-schedule sacred time blocks to achieve them. Do you value your health? Create a daily recurring calendar entry for ‘Exercise’. Do you value your spouse? Create a weekly recurring time block for ‘Date night’. Third, schedule everything. Instead of checking email every few minutes, schedule three times a day to process it. Instead of writing ‘Call back my sister’ on your to-do list, go ahead and put it on your calendar or, establish a recurring time block each afternoon to ‘return phone calls’.