After the tryptophan-induced coma of an overwrought turkey extravaganza, you’ve likely forgotten everything you needed to get done over the all-too-brief break: important things like textbook-reading, soul-centering and hooking up with your high school prom date. Maybe if you had made a to-do list, the five days of classlessness (in more ways than one) would have been more productive.
To-do lists are the classic solution for the scatter-brained, semi-neurotic and sleep-deprived college student, swamped with ridiculous amounts of homework and highly unfortunate tasks like vacuuming or changing your NetID password on penalty of death — the kinds of things you forget about until you can’t log in to Blackboard, Caesar or e-mail during your inevitably crappy registration time.
So, write down what you have to do. It really isn’t all that complicated. But if Intro to Psych has taught me anything, it’s that there are a lot more subtleties and nuances than first meet the eye. Small changes to your to-do list habits can make big differences in your organization, grades and all around good-at-life-ness.
How to make a to-do list
Specific = good. Instead of scribbling down “clean your room; it reeks of filth and squalor,” pick a small task that helps achieve a clean room such as “throw away your large piles of moldy dishes.” This is a task that is quite easily done, needs to be done and is a good way to start cleaning your room. Writing a list of concrete actions is more effective than listing 80 billion big, daunting, cringe-inducing projects. Psychologically, tasks without a clear method or structure are much harder to accomplish than those that are well defined.
Make attainable goals. You are more likely to get in a habit of making to-do lists and completing the tasks on them if you regularly finish every item on your list at the end of the day or week. Don’t add abstract, enormous projects like “become perpetually suave” to your list of things to do before tomorrow. They bog you down with a sense of impossibility and make you more likely to sit around instead of being productive (unless, of course, you really are just that suave). Goal making itself, though, is key. According to my psych book (and its abundant wealth of wisdom), “Goals direct attention and effort, encourage long-term persistence, and help people develop strategies.”
Add trivial goals to your list. That way, you can cross something off and get into that task-accomplisher mode. If you know you are going to shower tonight, add it to your list and then feel super masterful as you put a big, fat line through it when you no longer smell bad. Once you start crossing things off, that successful glow of accomplishment will motivate you to continue on your merry, productive way. The scientific reason for this is that crossing off a task, even a trivial one, creates the same kind of positive emotions as accomplishing a real goal.
Prioritize. Finishing the paper that was due three hours ago might be more important than polishing your Rubik’s cube collection. Your list should reflect this. Ideally, write everything down in order of priority. If your brain doesn’t work like that, just write everything down and then rank the importance of each task, Hot or Not-style. This will make a long list less intimidating and give you a better sense of where to start.
Know your list style. Eventually, you get to know what kind of listmaker you are. Some people are better off making short lists to be completed in a day. Others prefer an ongoing list so they can see what the rest of their week looks like. If you are really into the big picture, it can be nice to have multiple lists going, like “short-term goals” and “long-term goals,” so you can focus on tasks at hand without worrying about life-long plans.
Consider going digital. One of the benefits of to-do lists is the actual act of writing down the jumble of things in your head; but for the technologically-inclined, there are also many online task-list managers. Some have cool features like text message reminders — then you will be organized and feel popular. If this sounds like your thing, Ta-Da Lists and Remember the Milk are among the best free sites.
Efficiency is a great thing, leaving more time for things like being suave, impressing your friends with your cooking skills, rediscovering reality and spending hours on Hot or Not.