Creating Healthy Boundaries: The Closed To-Do List

“Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.”

~Patti Digh~

“Check your life. Not boxes.”

~Richie Norton~

“There is satisfaction,” he said to Dalinar, “in creating a list of things you can actually accomplish, then removing them one at a time.”

~Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer~

“It is a waste of time not to do the most effective, useful, or important thing you can do.”

~Mokokoma Mokhonoana~

Many of us say that we’re going to write a to-do list, but if we’re honest it’s more of a “could-do” list. Let me explain. There are, of course, numerous things that we could do in a day. Sometimes it’s what we’re thinking about as we go to sleep, and there’s this long scrolling list of things we feel we should do. What’s interesting about these general lists is that they include things that are urgent and things that are not all mixed up together, so it’s difficult to see what is really the priority. It is not hard to think of things we should do; what is difficult is figuring out what we can and want to fit into a month, a week, day, an hour. There may be more we want to do than there is time for while also being sane, healthy, and balanced.

This is why I employ a method called the closed to-do list. Instead of having a running to-do list that you are always adding to which is a surefire way to feel overwhelmed, you create a reasonable list for the day that is both realistic and kind to yourself. I also highly recommend leaving white space in your day. A good trick for making sure you’re not overextending yourself is asking yourself how long you think something will take, then doubling that time. This may seem a bit extreme, but it’s better to have extra time than to stuff your day too full.

Eternal optimist

Idea behind closed to do list.

Finish everything on the list before you add anything else to it.

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