Get More Done Now with a Closed To Do List

Thanksgiving is this week in the U.S. I thought this idea might help you with preparing for your Turkey Day celebration. I learned this idea from the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (which I reviewed in this post) and I’ve been using it off and on when my to do list seems way too overwhelming and I need to focus on the “must do” tasks. 

The idea is that you make your to do list a “Closed List”.  What this means is that you only have a set number of items on the list.  The rules are simple. You cannot add another item on the list until you have completed one on that list. This way, you focus on a specific number of tasks and the noise of the million other tasks stays quiet.  Once you complete an item on your to do list, then you can move another onto it. Simple. 

After reading this, I decided I needed to try to implement it using Toodledo (affiliate link), the to do list app that I use to track everything I need to do. In Toodledo you can “star” a task where you mark the star next to it and those tasks tend to appear at the top of any filters or queries you do. I used this feature to implement the Closed List. 

To implement a Closed List, I star 10 to do items. There is a filter in Toodledo that will only show the starred tasks, so I can open a filter to only show those 10 tasks.  

Then, I work from that list of 10 items only. I don’t look at the millions of other items I have to do. I focus completely on those 10 until I have finished (at least) one of them. When I complete a starred item, I can look at my items that are due today and star another item.  After that, I return to my “closed” list of starred items so I no longer get distracted by all the other tasks. Voila!  

Now, a practical application. Turkey Day is coming and this can be overwhelming with all the things that can be on our to do list to prepare for this day filled with food, fun and family. To try this out, do a brain dump of all your tasks you need to do for Thanksgiving.  Then, as we get closer to the holiday, look at your to do list and select 10 of them you need to do.  Focus on those 10 until you have completed one and then you can pull another Turkey Day item onto your list. Focus for the win! 

If you don’t use Toodledo, evaluate your app to see if there is a way you can tag or mark 10 tasks – or just write the 10 items on a piece of paper and work from there. As you complete an item, mark it as done and then add one more item. Only one! 

I hope this idea helps you to focus on only 10 items knowing we really can only do so much. Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!