What Your To-Do List Says About You

This edition of Woe was meant to be something whimsical and silly in which I propose bleak-yet-comedic TV shows that would never (and probably should never) be made, but would improve the state of current programming immensely. However, I’ve been feeling a bit home truth-y, so I decided to instead address something many people are familiar with; the numb, crushing horror of the to-do list.

To-do lists come in many sizes, and can range from being of little or no consequence to completely fucking crucial. The best ones take place over a relatively short period of time (more on that later), and are generally comprised of tasks the to-do list writer should, erm, do.

The real point of a to-do list is to prioritise chores the list writer would rather be bludgeoned to death with their own severed legs than do. That is to say, if there’s anything on the to-do list that doesn’t have to be done, the author of the to-do list has problems.

For example, say the creator of the list writes a snarky blog in their spare time. If the blogger’s to-do list looks like this;

1)Get milk
2)Do washing up
3)Update blog
4)Wash car

That person shouldn’t be blogging, because they view it as a chore. Similarly, if you include ‘work on novel’ in your to-do list, it’s unlikely that the novel will ever be finished. And if it gets finished, it will suck.

As I said earlier, the best to-do lists are over a short period of time. The classic ‘things to do today’ is a personal favourite, but a day can be a bit short. If you’re the type who loses sleep over a list of tasks you failed to complete on time (despite the tasks set and time allocated matters to you and you alone), it’s probably better to go for the more roomy ‘things to do this week’, then add some sub-lists if something can only be done on Tuesday. Tuesday is a good day to do things in town, because Tuesday means the Meatball Marinara is the Sub of the Day.

Lists that last longer than that—culminating in the dreaded ‘things to do in my life’—are just naïve. If you want to plan anything in any detail, there’s no chance you’ll be able to last beyond a fortnight. How do you know what’s going to be going on next month? Will you need to get some bread this exact day next year?

I once found a lifelong to-do list belonging to a lad I knew in high school. This sixteen year-old boy had written—and ticked off—‘find true love’, which I think sums up the kind of people who make to-do lists for life pretty well.

There’s also the danger of getting into metaphysical and philosophical stuff if you make a to-do list for life. I can guarantee that, if you’ve ever made a to-do list with ‘discover meaning of life’ on it, you’ll realise the meaning of life is to suffer. How do I know this? Because you’ll uncover this list that you wrote as an optimistic child many years later, probably shortly after a bereavement, and realise how much of a crushing, brutally complete disappointment you are to your younger self.

But short-term listers aren’t free from making stupid mistakes, either. I’m not going to harp on about never knowing when you’ll get hit by a bus, but I’ll say this: Never, ever write in something cheerful, not even as a treat for cleaning your septic tank. Why? Because someone else might see your list. Imagine, dear reader, you came across this;

1)Change light bulbs in kitchen
2)Have a biscuit :)
3)Walk dog

Just sad, isn’t it? The poor fuck who wrote this list needs to make time in their lives to enjoy a biscuit. And they even drew a little smiley face to remind them it’s an enjoyable thing! Their head must be a bleak wasteland, populated only by overbearing parents and unfaithful ex-lovers.

It’s not a good idea to include anything too mundane either. Consider if someone found a to-do list in which you wrote ‘cut fingernails’. They’d think you’re the sort of person who needs to be reminded in list form that your fingernails are too long. In short, they’d file you under ‘stupid motherfucker’ for life.

Of course, you may not care what other people think about you. If that’s the case, why did you just read an article titled What Your To-Do List Says About You, you retard?

Now for a lovely biscuit :)
Nick