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Get It Done
1-2-3: Stop Writing To-Do Lists the Wrong Way (Do This Instead)
sent by Joaquín Kosegarten | August 04, 2026
You sit down, write out everything you need to do, and feel a brief hit of control.
By lunch, half the list’s untouched.
By end of day, some items have been quietly moved to tomorrow.
Sound familiar? The list is not the problem. The way you are writing it is.
1 Idea
Write tomorrow’s to-do list today, and cap it at three real priorities.
2 Ways it saves you time
1. Long lists trigger a mental trap called decision fatigue. Every time you scan a list of 12 items asking “what should I do next?”, you burn focus that should be going to the work itself. Capping the list at three eliminates that ongoing decision cost and saves the 10 to 15 minutes per day most people lose just re-reading and reprioritising the same items.
2. Writing the list the night before works with a brain mechanism called the Zeigarnik Effect. Your subconscious starts preparing for tomorrow’s tasks while you sleep, so you wake up already half-warmed-up. That means you skip the 20 to 30 minute morning warm-up most people need just to figure out where to begin. You start tomorrow already moving.
3 Steps to Get It Done:
1. Before you close your laptop tonight, ask one question: “What three things, done tomorrow, would make it a great day?” Write them down.
2. Put them somewhere you will see first thing in the morning. A sticky note on your keyboard beats any app you have to open.
3. Do them in order, top to bottom, before touching your inbox. Everything else goes on a separate “if I have time” list.
Conclusion
A to-do list is not a storage unit for every task you have ever thought of.
Three priorities, written the night before, done before noon. That’s how accomplished days are built. Try it tomorrow and notice how much more ground you cover.
This is what the Task Efficiency step in Get It Done is built around: the quiet shift from being busy to being effective.
“But I have way more than three things to do!”
Of course you do. Everyone does. The point isn’t to ignore the rest. The point is to know which three must happen for the day to count as a win, and protect them. Everything else will either find you (if it’s truly urgent) or can wait. Three done beats fifteen half-started. Every single time.
As promised — 1 minute that can save you hours
Yours in Getting It Done,
Joaquin Kosegarten
Author of Get It Done
Creator of the 1-2-3 Get It Done Newsletter
P.S. Fun Fact: In 1918, steel magnate Charles Schwab hired productivity consultant Ivy Lee to help his executives get more done. Lee’s advice was so simple that Schwab initially refused to pay for it: at the end of each day, write the six most important tasks for tomorrow, ranked in order, and start with number one until it’s done. Three months later, Schwab was so impressed that he sent Lee a cheque for $25,000, equivalent to over half a million dollars today, for what might be the most valuable piece of productivity advice ever given. The modern three-task variant is the same idea, trimmed for today’s noisier world.
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Stop Writing To-Do Lists the Wrong Way (Do This Instead)
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1-2-3 Get It Done is a weekly 1-minute read trusted by busy professionals who want to achieve more in less time without burning out.
Each issue gives you 1 idea, 2 ways it saves you time, and 3 steps to put it into action immediately.