The Perfect To-Do List
Hannah
Feeling overwhelmed by deadlines and endless to-dos? Discover simple strategies to stay organized, reduce stress, and make your student life more productive and relaxed.
For many of us, student life is the very first opportunity to organize our lives completely on our own. No more rules saying you’re not allowed to fry pancakes after midnight, no more homework you’re constantly reminded of. Attendance requirements, deadlines, and workload planning at university are often far more flexible than they were at school and finally, you get to make your own decisions.
That freedom feels pretty great.
But starting university and moving out also comes with the other side of the coin:
You’re allowed to organize everything yourself… but you also have to.
When multiple deadlines, appointments, and to-dos pile up at the same time, it can quickly become overwhelming. Suddenly, your head feels just as full as your calendar.
So how do you keep track of it all? Sure, a to-do list is a good first step, keeping everything in your head rarely works well. Sometimes that’s enough. But what if the list keeps getting longer and the stress doesn’t go away?
After all, even a good to-do list needs to be managed properly. This article is all about how to do that in a simple way, and how to make your everyday student life easier in the process.
The Eisenhower Matrix
The principle of the Eisenhower Matrix goes back (who would have guessed) to former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Supposedly, he divided his desk in the White House into four zones in order to sort his tasks accordingly. The result is a grid based on two variables: urgency and importance.
Everything on your to-do list can be sorted into this grid.
Tasks are divided into the following categories:
- Important and urgent
- Important but not urgent
- Not important but urgent
- Not important and not urgent
You can probably guess: we spend a surprising amount of time on tasks that are neither important nor urgent. The goal, of course, is to start with the exact opposite.
Important and urgent tasks are completed first.
Important but not urgent tasks can be scheduled for later, but they should be given a clear deadline and time frame so they’re finished before they become urgent. Setting an alarm or calendar reminder can be extremely helpful here.
Eisenhower delegated urgent but not important tasks to his staff. In offices and executive suites, “passing tasks on to someone else” can work quite well, but when you’re alone with your list, that’s obviously not an option. In that case, urgency has to take a back seat, and you focus on the truly important tasks first.
As for tasks that are neither urgent nor important: you don’t need to wrestle with them at all. Either cross them off entirely or save them for when everything else is done.
Using the Eisenhower Matrix allows you to reflect on your upcoming tasks and arrange them in a meaningful order. This helps prevent stress and unnecessary time-wasting.
Identifying Time Wasters
We’ve talked extensively about to-do lists. If you want to take things one step further, try writing the opposite as well: a not-to-do list.
This is where you put everything that distracts or stresses you unnecessarily. A not-to-do list helps you identify the time wasters that steal time from your important tasks.
For example, is your essay not getting finished because you’re constantly distracted by your phone? Then “checking Instagram” might belong on your not-to-do list. It won’t completely remove the temptation, but it serves as a helpful reminder to stay focused.
Does your presentation have to be finished by tomorrow? Then the content should be your priority, and designing fancy slides can wait. Put it on the not-to-do list. Some presentations have to survive without beautiful graphics, because what truly matters is what you’re teaching your audience.
Tasks that stress you out but could technically be postponed sometimes deserve a spot on the not-to-do list as well. Is there an email you need to write but really don’t want to? Does it keep you away from your desk because you’re procrastinating instead? Maybe the email can wait until tomorrow or the day after. Write it on today’s not-to-do list and allow yourself to forget about it for a few hours so you can finally finish other things.
Good List, Good Work
The best part of a to-do list comes at the very end: checking things off and crossing them out.
Nothing feels better than completing a task or crumpling up a list and throwing it away because you’ve worked through every single item.
That’s exactly why it’s important to evaluate and organize your tasks beforehand. If you keep a well-structured list, you’ll be able to cross things off with a clear and satisfied mind at the end of the day.
For a small boost of motivation, there’s nothing wrong with writing down one or two things you’ve already accomplished in the morning.
And pleasant activities deserve a place on your list, too. Maybe you reward yourself with a coffee and an hour of reading in the afternoon after a productive morning — or with pancakes at midnight after an evening full of university tasks.
Sometimes it’s not easy to keep track of everything. But a good list and completed tasks also call for relaxed breaks and moments to breathe.
Now that I get to cross “write article” off my own list, and after the (urgently needed) item “proofread spelling”, a cup of tea is waiting for me. So I only have a few last words:
Organizing your entire life on your own can be chaotic at times, but small habits often make all the difference.
I hope these tips help you create truly effective to-do lists, and I wish you lots of success with your next task.
All photo rights by International Campus GmbH.