If you’re like most people, your To-Do list is a mile long. And it keeps growing. You never complete everything on the list. And you add more than you cross off.
It can tank your confidence.
Instead of feeling accomplished, you feel crappy about all the things you didn’t do.
One of the 3 Pillars of Self-Worth is Competence. If you constantly move things from your To-Do list from one day to the next, it feels like you’re not competent – l
Because it’s easy to lose sight of what you did when you face a list of unfinished tasks.
And on your worst beat-yourself-up days, you can feel like a failure.
The To-Do List Alternative
A few years ago, I started keeping an alternative to the To-Do list: the DONE list. It doesn’t replace my list of tasks to do. I still keep several lists for different categories such as personal tasks, website
(Sometimes I even add things to my list that I already finished, just to cross off another item. Yeah, I’m geeky that way.)
But the DONE list helps me focus on all the things I actually accomplished each day. It serves as a visual reminder of my competence and productivity.
A Done List is better than a To-Do List
Here’s the magic of a DONE list: Your To-Do list probably contains big, complicated tasks like “Catch up on email” or “Clean out the garage” or “Write my book.”
Good gravy! Who can do even one of those tasks in a single day?
So maybe you didn’t clear out your entire inbox. Who can? Did you delete thirty emails? Hooray! Put that accomplishment on your DONE list.
I’m pretty sure you didn’t clean the entire garage in one
Celebrate your successes.
The beauty of the DONE list is that you get to celebrate what you did accomplish, even if it was only part of a larger goal. You celebrate the progress.
I keep my DONE lists until the end of the week. Then I celebrate my successes each Friday in a little one-woman pick-me-up party (which is way better than a pity party over all the unfinished tasks that inevitably still inhabit my To-Do list).
When you celebrate your successes, big and small, your confidence grows.
(Another visual way of celebrating your wins for each accomplished task is with the Epic Win app (free on Android.)
The End-of-Year Done List
Then, I transfer major accomplishments to a master, end-of-year DONE list that I call my Accomplishment List. I’m usually amazed to remember all the great things I did – things that got forgotten amidst the ongoing busy-ness of life. I’ll write more about that later.
Have you ever kept a DONE list? Did it work for you? Leave a comment telling me about your experience.
