Just Start: The 'Could-Do' list
Or: how to turn endless jobs into a tasty little buffet of options.
Until quite recently, I have been a very firm believer in the to-do list. Probably a few people have told you, over the course of your life, that to-do lists will organise and streamline your life, especially if you approach them properly. And they’re right! Done properly, a good to-do list helps you remember things and makes you less stressed from the moment you make it, probably the most massive return on the time investment it takes to make that you’ll get from anything. I’ll explain how I make to-do lists now towards the end of this post. I still believe in them.
Recently, though, I’ve changed how I think about them a bit. Here’s why:
On any given day, I have to do a lot of different stuff. Yesterday included two interviews, a bunch of editing, some writing, and a fair bit of admin (work, home, and child). On most given days I would also like to do a lot of stuff: a really good day is one where I do a solid chunk of reading, sit down at the piano, organise a semi-memorable activity* for the nine-year-old and learn at least one new thing about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It’s a lot to fit in! Most days I’m absolutely flat out. This is a problem because there’s also a third category of stuff that we haven’t talked about yet, which is the stuff that nobody is pestering me to do (YouTube videos, my own writing, other projects) which will always be the thing that get pushed to the sidelines if (or, really, when) I’m short on time.
To-do lists fix this, sort of.
Could-do lists fix it better.
I got the idea from a Nate Soares article I read a few months ago in which he suggests that the word ‘should’ is quite often actively harmful: that most people use it to put themselves in direct and unnecessary conflict with themselves. Instead of saying “I should do X”, Soares suggests, it might be helpful to unpack the sentence into its implications, for instance:
"I should call my father this week" might cash out to "if I don't call my father this week, he'll feel disappointed and lonely."
This, I think, is very helpful on its own! But if shoulds are bad, I think coulds are quite a lot better.
As noted, I have a lot to do: but the thing is, a lot of it is very different stuff. I can pretty much always make myself grind through anything, but sometimes it genuinely does feel like I’m wading uphill through treacle, and sometimes it feels like a genuine joy. And this isn’t just work stuff! There are occasions when nothing sounds better to me than sitting down with a big list of academic references and a solid playlist full of swamp rock, and times when watching a BJJ instructional makes me want to tear out my own beard. There are times when I cannot wait to leap into writing an article, and times (rare, to be fair) when I fancy editing a video. What’s more, if I do one of the ‘fun’ things on my list (piano, BJJ stuff, parenting), it doesn’t lead to a hedonistic spiral where I write the entire day off: it re-energises me to the point where I (usually) feel like doing some actual work. Hand on heart, I get a lot more done in a morning where I work for an hour, do some press-ups and a bit of sight-reading, then work for another hour, than one where I just sit down at my desk for three hours of looking at the screen.
This, then, is where the ‘could-do’ list comes in. Instead of listing all the things I have to do, I try to list the things I could do, as the mood takes me: including all of my work, but also all of the above. I make it as granular as possible: it might also include little jobs I’ve been putting off (emailing the solicitor, painting a pipe, sorting out life admin) that I will happily do as I procrastinate wildly away from another task. Whether this is the best way to organise my time I sincerely can’t tell you, but what I can tell you is that I now pretty regularly look at my list of jobs as a delicious buffet to be sampled from, rather than an arduous mountain to climb.
Two things about this:
Obviously, it helps enormously that I’m freelance, and I work from home. Sorry if this doesn’t describe your circumstances: all I can suggest is to do this stuff on the weekends, or whenever you can (I’ve worked in a few high-pressure offices, so I understand your pain).
Also obviously, this means staying on top of your deadlines. If I absolutely have to write something, there’s no faffing about with any of the things I like: I grind like everyone else. What I will say, though, is that granting myself a bit more freedom has actually helped me get a bit better with deadlines: by going easier on myself during the times I’m not actively working, I’ve reframed the period from 9-5 every day from ‘time I should be sitting at a desk, working on projects’ to ‘time that is available for a lot of different things. That also makes me happier about working outside of normal hours: I’ll happily biff out an hour or two of work at the weekend knowing that it’ll make my upcoming week more flexible.
Do I think this is the perfect system? No. Like pretty much everything else, it’s something I’m playing around with: a little thing that makes my days a bit easier. I might be doing something else in six months, and that might work worse or better. For now, though, I start most days by asking ‘What could I do today?’ It’s much more fun than listing all the things I should do.
Have a great week!
Joel x
*This might be: going to the creek, climbing a tree, doing something artistic, playing a new boardgame, identifying birdcalls, looking at weird stuff through a microscope, doing some esoteric maths stuff (he loves esoteric maths stuff) or anything else along those lines.
Stuff I like
🎮 Videogame - Overcooked 2
A delightful little co-op game: it’s designed to be maddening, but I’m playing it with my son (who has no experience of working in a fast-paced kitchen environment), and we shout “Order up!” to each other when dishes are ready. Lovely!
📖 Book - The Feather Thief by Kirk W. Johnson
This book starts with a fascinating crime — a guy robbed a museum to steal exotic bird corpses for his fly-fishing addiction — and rolls it out into a tale pitting greed against science. I absolutely loved this.
🎶 Hype Music -I Like Myself (Most of the time) by K. Flay
Same, K. Flay. Same.
🎥 Video - Continental Breakfast by Key & Peele
That’s the sketch referenced up top, and it’s still full of great lines you’ve forgotten. Go watch it!
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This is excellent. As we're in the transition of both being back at work with two kids under 3 (and a new job on top of that for me), I've been thinking extensively about energy management.
Do you ever find the advice to "do the hardest tasks first" is sometimes bad advice?
For example, I started aiming to do more of my most energizing work early in the day. By the time I get to the PM, I already might feel some burnout from going at a high clip from ~6am to ~1pm. By then, the "fun" work might not be as much fun if I've put it off. And the "hard" stuff is still hard. So I often set myself a block of afternoon time (usually after a quick play-some-music reset) where I do the easy-but-grindy stuff that I dislike and simply need to power through.
If it sucks, great! Expectation met!
But often, I find myself even more energized after it, and in a better headspace as I transition to evening hours.