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Sort your work by what it is and your lists will stop lying
A single to-do list can’t tell an idea from a commitment, or a project from work that never ends. Sorting your work into ideas, goals, plans, projects, activities and tasks fixes that.
The usual fix for a messy workload is a single list. It holds up until that list contains the book you want to write, the report you send every Friday, a dentist appointment and a side business you dream about building. Everything on it looks the same, so the list can’t tell you what matters, what is late, or what you should drop.
In this article, I want to share the mental model I use to fix that. It boils down to one idea: sort your work by what it is.
Busy all week, with little to show for it
Let’s suppose you know your values, your goals and your priorities. Now what?
Many people are stuck there. They have goals but no plan. Plans but no projects. Projects but no concrete tasks. And so they drift: busy all week, with little to show for it.
The way out is to stop treating all your work as one kind of thing. Options aren’t commitments. Ongoing work isn’t finite work. Mix them up and…
