HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done (HBR Guide Series)

Chapter 13

How to Tackle Your To-Do List

by Peter Bregman

For many of us, our to-do list has become more of a guilt list: an inventory of everything we want to do and really should do, but never get to. And the longer the list, the less likely we’ll get to everything on it, and the more stressed we become.

So how do we turn intention into action?

It’s the power of when and where.

Decide when and where you’ll do something, and the likelihood that you’ll follow through increases dramatically. The reason we’re always left with unfinished items on our to-do lists is because they’re the wrong tool to drive our accomplishments. A list is useful as a collection tool—to ensure we know the pool of things that we need to do.

A calendar, on the other hand, ...