Stop being overwhelmed by your to-do list

So often, an idea pops into my mind, and 20 minutes later I find myself down a rabbit hole of random tasks. A simple hack helps: I add filters to my todo list.

I keep my Asana board filtered on “today,” so when I add a task for the future, it disappears. As I watch this happen, I feel my mental load decreasing because I know the task is documented. At the same time, I’m not overwhelmed by a mile-long list of things that need to be done. Each morning I look at my list and move the dates of things that really can’t get done today.

You could set this up in Excel with filters or by having separate pages for different days of todos in a journal or online note keeper. You could even take this next level by filtering for your highest priority tasks first before you are allowed to see the minor ones.

I cannot tell you how much this simple trick has reduced my stress. I even used it three times while writing this post. Filter on!

#productivity #stress