How to stop your to-do list overwhelming your brain

Posted on by J.J. Hamilton

Choice paralysis is your worst enemy. Too few things to do and you might not have enough to fill a day. Too many and you’ll suffer from decision fatigue, the phenomenon where your brain effectively shuts down after having to make too many choices in one day.

It’s like when you’re in a supermarket, surrounded by thousands of different cereal brands. You only came in for the one box, but now you’re having to choose between which type you want and whether it’s going to be a designer or supermarket-own flavour.

The same is true for your to-do list. I adore filling my Bullet Journal Daily Log page with the many things that I need to get done in that one day, and when we get to the weekends, I’ll often combine Saturday and Sunday together. Anything that I don’t get done on Day 1 can be easily sorted on Day 2. In theory.

But sometimes I’ll look at my to-do list and think, God, there’s too much to do.

And my brain effectively shuts down. Staring down 20, 30, 40 individual tasks can be great for assessing what needs doing, but it can lead to total overwhelm.

I solved my problem with my Bullet Journal, but what you’re about to read can be used with any note-taking Second Brain of your choice.

While we’re here, if you’ve never built a Second Brain, read this first, then assess whether you need to digital de-hoard your Second Brain, and then come straight back.

The two-tier system

Stopping yourself from feeling so overwhelmed is actually pretty simple, and it comes down to setting up a two-tier system for tasks.

Your first system is what we’re going to call the Holding Queue. Think of this like a storage bank for everything that needs to be done in any given timeframe. This is always best kept out of sight and out of mind, and might form the shape of a separate notebook. Digital and physical books work for this, so pick your poison. You might even prefer to use a whiteboard to store your Holding Queue: something big and imposing and front-and-centre so that it’s easy for you to swivel in your chair to turn to when your second system needs reloading.

Whatever you use, it’s still important that you write down what needs doing. The brain is designed to come up with new and exciting ideas, but it wasn’t made to store them. Get them down on paper so that you don’t lose track of what needs doing.

System two is the Active Workload. This is a strict limit of 3-5 items that you’re allowed to focus on for today, but only those items. You might get halfway through the day and tick off every item in your Active Workload. If so: great! Pick another 3-5 tasks from your Holding Queue and add it to System Two!

The takeaway here is that you’re keeping your active queue of things to do low so that you can focus on only the things you need to do.

The low-friction reset

I’ve spoken in the past about the importance of having a weekly or 90-day reset, but this could be something that you do everyday. I try to keep this really simple and to-the-point. If it’s complicated, you’re probably less likely to do it. So, when I write down what needs doing, I use my red pen to number the tasks, with 1 being the most important.

And then I’ll start with that task, working my way through the subsequent numbers. If I’m really struggling to get going, I’ll follow the two-minute rule, and pick the tasks that I’m most likely to either get down in two minutes, or to convince myself that I’ll only spend two minutes on it – before getting stuck in.

And if it doesn’t work, and you find yourself adding more and more to the Active Workload? Create a physical boundary. Swap from the Bullet Journal or the unlimited canvas of OneNote to an index card or sticky note. If it doesn’t fit, you simply cannot add any more.

Where are you planning to store your Holding Queue?

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