How to Make a To-Do List That Doesn't Make You Hate Yourself By 4 PM
Insights into avoiding the cycle of doing too much, crashing out, & repeating
I both love and hate these types of articles on productivity and lifestyle, and yet I also still consume them to this day. I don’t know that I will ever get over the question of, “How do we do mundane life better, deeper, more meaningfully, with more ease, etc.” Since I am in training in psychiatry, it’s probably a good thing that this well runs so deep. On this Friday, before the weekend, I present to you five considerations on making a to-do list that doesn’t make you want to rip your hair out.
My credentials on this have less to do with being a therapist, and more to do with getting through undergrad, medical school, and residency while constantly trying to do creative projects alongside it. We don’t all have the same access nor hours in a day, so I present you principles rather than rigid rules because I think the principles can help with particulars.
I give you this on a Friday, but maybe you wait to think about it until Sunday. When you have the Sunday afternoon scaries, sometimes the best thing you can do is what we call Opposite Action in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). When you’re feeling anxious and a bit frozen on Sunday, sometimes doing one small thing (hello, Avoidance Diaries) can open you up a bit more. Opposite action is when you first validate an emotion you are having, then notice what it drives you to do, and then you do the opposite of the direction that emotion is driving you towards. When used gently, it can be helpful when we notice a way of dealing with emotions or problems over time that is not serving us. If you’d like to learn more about this, I find this video by DBTKiki really helpful.
Principle One: What would a kind coach do?
I once had someone reflect to me when I was in medical school that my inner monologue and expectations sounded like a brutal sort of coach. We had both been runners in high school, and this reflection made me think about good and bad coaches I’d had.
A good coach helps you find your gifts and your growing edge. In some ways, they are like a good gardener: they understand time and slow change is the norm, that there are seasons to things, and that one can cause damage pushing too hard. A good coach in high school would ask how to get someone from an 8 minute mile to a 7 minute mile, not push them to suddenly run a 5 minute mile. Similarly, they wouldn’t just leave someone already running a 6 minute mile to stagnate, but would strengthen and encourage them to get faster, try new strategies, and expand their skills. Being unkind is bad coaching, but being unbelieving in someone’s ability to grow would also make a lackluster teacher. A bad coach would have unrealistic expectations and then moralize about an athlete’s inability to complete the plan as their personal failing.
If you’d like an example of good coaching, I think that
of Nike Run Club is a great example of what balanced kindness and encouragement look like.Does your to-do list sound more like the Good Coach or the Bad Coach?