This hasn’t been happening much for me, however I can’t deny that people think that to-do lists are worthless and unproductive tools to use.

I don’t blame you as they can get in the way of work. From their highly addictive nature of crossing things off the list to feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tasks that you have to do.

Fucking useless to-do lists. How dare they waste most people’s time.

Indeed, to-do lists are a problem for several people, however if you know how to use them properly, they can be valuable tools. When you use them properly it makes sense why you want to defend them. Much like how I wish to defend them today.

Why I Use Them

The big reason to-do lists help me out so much comes down to how I work. In fact we all have a particular style of work much like we do with writing.

Some people take several days to write an article. For myself, I write several over the day.

Of course there will be a difference in quality, however I always make an effort to mitigate that by editing, planning ideas ahead and only writing something that I know I can talk about with minimal research.

All the same, how we grow and develop our business and how we work requires different things that we need to do.

Some people can plan very far ahead and know what steps they need to take, but are terrible or sub-par on their execution of each step.

For myself, I think I can execute decent enough, however I don’t always know what my next step is.

As a result it leaves me in a constant state of doing the same thing day in and day out, with no real direction to what I’m achieving.

Sure it may sound depressing, however it explains my excessive need for lists not to mention the abundant of notes I have on my desk.

Seriously it’s not that bad, but still.

I Use To-Do Lists

I use to-do lists for their practicality. They are a reminder of my next steps that I need to be taking. I don’t always have to constantly rely on the list, my memory is still pretty good, however when I hit a period where I don’t do work, it can be hard to figure out what is next.

Where should I be focusing my attention to next?

What other things have I not considered?

To-do lists are a strict reminder of what my daily activities need to be in order to move forward and achieve the goals I want to achieve.

Learn How You Work

All of this comes back to an understanding of yourself and how you work. It took me a while to be as productive as I am now. There was a lot of self discovery and understanding of what needed to be done for me to be productive.

When I don’t have a direction, I get easily distracted and that was the case for me early on for a few years until I learned I needed a list.

If you feel you can do more work, take the time to figure out what type of worker you are.

Do you need a list?

Or perhaps a long-term detailed plan for yourself?

Do you work better with a collective group around you?

Or can you get away with long nights alone?

How you work determines the effectiveness and quality of your hustle and that makes all the difference.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon

Another good day to knock out pretty much everything on my list except for one thing. I am thankful for the app that I use to mark my to-do lists as it has been making me more productive than I normally would be.

Regardless, yesterday was a good day to take some massive steps and set myself up for the rest of this week. I’ve got some more things planned for this week I’m excited to show off.

First thing would be the article that I wrote about yesterday for Medium Members. It’s a different writing style and a topic I don’t talk all that much about. Check it out.

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