Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes, 37s.
Caroline Webb’s book, How To Have A Good Day, is a treasure trove of productivity advice that actually works. One of my favorite nuggets from the book is about how to make your to-do list quite a bit sexier. As David Allen says, “everything on your task list either attracts or repels you psychologically.”
After you figure out what’s on your plate for the day, here are a few ways to make the goals on that to-do list a lot sexier—pulled straight from How to Have a Good Day.
Frame the items on your to-do list in a positive way. As Caroline puts it: “Either [our goals are] about doing more of something good, or they’re about doing less of something bad.” Luckily, research shows that goals framed in a positive, constructive way are more powerful than “avoidance goals” in leading us to become more productive (I’ve included an example of this below).- Think about why your goals matter to you. Intrinsic goals are motivated by values meaningful to you, such as growth and relationships. These are much more motivating than extrinsic goals—efforts motivated by money, status, or other external factors. According to Caroline, the two categories of goals “work so differently that they’re processed in different parts of our brain.” The science tells us that we’re more likely to get something done when we take a moment to think about why it matters to us personally.”
- Create a “when-then” plan. To get something done, “it helps to get very specific about what we’ll do and when we’ll do it,” Caroline says. The effects of this can be astounding. One review of more than 200 studies showed that setting simple “implementation intentions” as part of a when-then plan made people as much as three times more likely to achieve their goals. Taking just a minute or two to create a simple when-then plan—like that you’ll walk to the gym when your energy dips during the workday—will go a long way in making you more likely to achieve your daily goals.
- Make your goals smaller. You’ll get more stuff done when you break your bigger daily goals into bite-sized chunks. In practice, you’re basically breaking an item on your to-do list down into many mini ones. This makes it feel as though your goals are more within reach. Ask yourself: what are the steps you need to reach that ultimate goal?
To put this into practice, let’s say you have a trip to Spain coming up, and you want to learn some Spanish. Instead of adding a boring, generic goal on your to-do list like:
Learn some Spanish for upcoming trip
You can make the goal more positive, meaningful, small, and situation-specific by redefining it:
Take four Duolingo lessons immediately following dinner in order to enjoy January’s trip to Spain that much more.
The goal is the exact same—but the difference is that the task is a lot less aversive to you, so you’re more likely to achieve it.
