Struggling to Manage Your To-Do List? This Tiny Change Will Get You On Top of Your Workload Once and for All

You’re doing everything right.

• You have a to-do list.
• It’s up-to-date.
• Everything has a due date.

Then how come deadlines still seem to take you by surprise, and you end up rushing to complete things on time?

You have a due date problem.

While it is important to record the date a task or project is due (the deadline), you must also schedule a time to do the work. This is your task’s do date. (You might prefer to call it a next action date, as that, at least, sounds different when you say it!)

You need two dates: a due date and a do date. Record the due date but schedule the do date.

If you use a digital to-do list, some tools allow you to create a field for each date. Customisable tools like Notion make this easy.

Or, you can write your deadline as part of the task’s title or in a text field; for example:

Write an article about to-do lists (due 25 April).

Then schedule the do date.

Do dates provide a realistic picture of your workload; they make time blocking easier and help you get…