The single day “Daily task list” is built on two ideas I like to call “putting up blinders” and “pre-fixed menus”.
When you enter the “Daily task list”, you are taken to a simplified view of your work with only the tasks you’ve planned to work on today. Before this feature existed, your task list for today sat side by side with your tasks for tomorrow and the next day. As you moved through your work day, your eyes might pass by that big, scary task for tomorrow or annoying thing on your schedule two days from now and you’d lose your focus, spend mental cycles on things you don’t need to worry about yet, and at worst become stressed and anxious.
The single day focus hides the future from you, so you aren’t subconsciously getting pulled into thinking about work you aren’t actually working on. And when you look at a smaller list of work e.g. todays tasks vs this week’s tasks, you also get a sense that what you are trying to do can be accomplished. When you constantly look at work that needs to be done over large time spans, it’s hard to not feel defeated. When you look at an achievable list, you tend to work through it with a spring in your step.
I like to think of my daily task list as a “pre-fixed menu” for the work day. Before I started creating a “pre-fixed menu” for my work day, I’d need to search out new work between completed task. This was especially dangerous after a long stretch of coding or a meeting when my mind was too tired to think critically about what to work on next. I’d inevitably just fumble around on the internet for 15-20 minutes instead of hopping into meaningful work.
When I plan my day, I try and get a clear idea of what I want to work on that day and the order I want to do my tasks in. I prefer to order my tasks by how they’d feel in the sequence of my day rather than simply when they’d fit in my schedule (timeboxing). Once I’m done planning, I just work my way through the menu methodically. Unless there’s an emergency, the menu doesn’t change. At this point, I’ve got blinders on, I’m going to do what I committed to in the morning and tomorrow morning will be my the next opportunity to reconsider what’s worth working on.
Here’s a few tips that can help you get the most out of using the daily task list:
- Try turning on “Hide completed tasks”. As you check off tasks, they disappear from view. I find this satisfying and motivating. It’s like the waiter clearing empty plates from table.
- Order your day by vibes. I like to do an hour or two of “chores” to start the day, like email, move to an hour or two of shallower work, and then leave my afternoon un-interrupted for deep work like coding, designing or writing. I try and batch my tasks to fit this cadence. Your cadence will be different. For me, this means I finish each day with my dessert. I get to work on the stuff I like as my energy wanes, which makes me forget about the tiredness.
