When I introduced the oath principle, I suggested to you that to do lists can be toxic if they are your principal, and certainly found your only time management tool. So I want to explain why and what you can do about it. So why can todo lists become toxic? Well, if you're good at them, you probably enjoy crossing things off. Some people are tickers others are crosses scrubs out. Some people get halfway through their To Do List copy the last few onto a new to do list that scrunch it up and throw it away.

Some people take great pride in working through their to do lists and the people who are best working with to do lists are also accepted. Good is taking more tasks on to their to do list. So they're often faced with this problem. It's the end of the working day. And this still stuff on my to do list. And when that happens, we are faced with a dilemma.

They have two choices. Let's have a look at what those two choices are. We'll call them strategy a and strategy B. Strategy a. Strategy a is to be diligent to be beautiful, and to say to yourself, you know what, I'm not leaving work till I work my way through my whole to do list. So what do you do?

You stay late. You work hard. You crunch through your to do list and later on in the evening, you finally finish your last to do you go home, you're exhausted you fall into bed having had not no proper food. You've had no proper social life. You're exhausted, your heads buzzing, but at least you feel glad that you've got everything done. You come into work the next morning with a blank To Do List marvelous except that soon fills up with today's work.

And by the end of the day, not only have you achieved masses, but still got stuck on your to do list. So what do you do? You stay late. You work hard, you get home late, not having eaten properly, you don't sleep well. You're exhausted from all the effort. You're going to work the next day.

The same thing happens at the end of the day, you stay late you work and eventually you get stressed and overwhelmed and you start to resent the workplace that is making you stay late night after night after night. Does that sound familiar? strategy is clearly not working. Let's try. Strategy B In strategy B, we also have two dues left over at the end of the day. However, we take a very different attitude to those two dues.

We say, I don't live to work, I work to live, I'm going to go home, I'm going to relax, I'm going to have a pleasant evening, I'm going to get a good night's sleep, I'm going to enjoy socializing, I'm going to do all the things that I work for. Problem is, you go home and that list of to do's is still in the back of your mind, you start worrying about it, which interrupts the pleasure of your social evening, and it interrupts your sleep, and you get up in the morning and you're anxious about all the two dues you've got to deal with before you can even start today's work. So of course, by the time we do get started day's work, you're already behind. So by the end of the day, you've got an even longer list of to do's still outstanding, which bothers you but you go home Anyway, he will try and enjoy the evening stuff going around your head, you're anxious, you don't sleep properly agitated, you get up in the morning, you already running late by the time you get to work, there's a whole long list of to do's before you start today's work.

And that carries on through the day. By the end of the day, that list is building a building. So is the anxiety and so is the stress. Strategy B is clearly not going to work for you either. So what's the answer? The problem isn't the strategy that you've chosen.

It's the to do list itself. to do lists can be toxic. So what's the alternative? And what is the value of a to do list? In our oats plan, the activities are not a to do list. They are a to do list.

That's a day's list of things that you will do and it's A closed list. Once you've completed them, then of course you can go home. And the purpose of your to do list is now to act as a reservoir to stop your brain getting full of things you want to hold in your head. You put them down on your to do list. And then when you come to do your outs planning at the end of the day, at the end of the week, the end of the month, you consult your to do list for inspiration, ideas, candidates for things that will go on to your next out plan. Now your to do list is working for you rather than work