8 To-Do List Mistakes You're Probably Making (And What To Do Instead)

Jamie Grill via Getty Images These tips will help you organize your to-do list so you actually get more done. “Writing down what you need to do on your to-do list helps you commit to those tasks,” Jan Yager, a sociologist and time management coach, told HuffPost. “There is no virtue gained by putting something on your to-do list and then not doing it,” said Laura Vanderkam, a time management expert and author of the forthcoming book “Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters.” “It’s just as not done as if you’d never put it on the list in the first place — only now you feel bad, too! That’s the worst of all possible outcomes.” “There is no virtue gained by putting something on your to-do list and then not doing it.” - Laura Vanderkam, author of "Tranquility by Tuesday" Instead, keep a separate master list of those bigger tasks or projects you’re contemplating but might not have the bandwidth to handle right now — what productivity expert David Allen calls the “someday maybe” list. “So if you have tasks on your list that have multiple steps or feature conjunctions like ‘and,’ clarify what you need to do by breaking them down further.” When your to-do list is a mix of big stuff and smaller stuff, you’ll find that the bite-sized items get crossed off and the larger ones keep getting put off, productivity coach Grace Marshall said.