Introduction
Most people use a to-do list.
But in most cases, they use it poorly.
They use it as an occasional reminder, when it should become a direct extension of their brain.
A reliable, organized, systematic external memory.
In The 25th Hour, we keep repeating a simple thing:
you should overuse your to-do list.
The problem with unfinished tasks
A Russian psychologist from the early 20th century, Bluma Zeigarnik, highlighted a surprising phenomenon.
She observed that waiters remembered current orders very well, but quickly forgot the ones that had already been served.
In the lab, she confirmed the intuition: unfinished tasks take up much more space in our minds than completed tasks.
This is what we now call the Zeigarnik effect.
In daily life, it shows up as constant mental noise.
All these ongoing tasks, or even just pending tasks, pollute your mind and make it harder to focus.
Your brain is not made to store tasks
You can see the brain like a computer's RAM.
If you keep too many active items in it at the same time, it slows down, overheats, and becomes less effective.
That famous "dark cloud" of intrusive thoughts ends up taking all the space.
The solution is not to "remember better."
The solution is to get tasks out of your head.
And that's exactly what the to-do list is for.
Capture everything, no exceptions
As soon as a task appears, capture it immediately.
No matter the context:
- an idea in the shower
- a request during a meeting
- an action after a call
- information you'll need later
No matter the tool either:
- notebook
- sticky note
- phone
- computer
What matters is that no task stays in your head.
Then everything needs to end up in one reliable place: your to-do list.
Otherwise, those items go back to feeding the dark cloud.
A short to-do list is a useful to-do list
To be effective, a to-do list has to be something you actually want to look at.
And for that, it needs to stay short.
A list filled with low-priority tasks planned months out becomes unreadable.
You read it and reread it without taking action.
That's where the maybe list comes in.
Tasks with no urgency and no immediate obligation get their own space:
- books to read
- movies to watch
- "maybe someday" projects
- ideas to explore later
Moving them out of the main to-do list keeps it clean without losing anything.
Do small tasks immediately
Some tasks don't even belong on a list.
If an action takes under two minutes, it's better to do it right away than to write it down, reread it, then postpone it.
That's exactly the idea behind the two-minute rule.
The fewer micro-tasks you stack, the clearer your to-do list stays.
Review your to-do list regularly
Overusing your to-do list doesn't mean filling it up and never looking at it.
The opposite.
You should review it as often as needed: often daily for active projects, and at least once a week.
This regular review helps you:
- delete obsolete tasks
- adjust priorities
- keep emptying the dark cloud continuously
It's a core pillar of good work organization.
Conclusion
Overusing your to-do list isn't becoming obsessive.
It's becoming calm.
The more you get tasks out of your head, the freer your mind becomes.
The clearer the list is, the easier it becomes to act, prioritize, and focus.
The to-do list isn't a control tool.
It's a liberation tool.
Go further
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