Why we should stop making to-do lists and switch to a done good list, especially now

Or about how change is slow and a done good list can help us stave off despair

I’ve always been a big fan of to-do lists. I am all about the satisfying feeling of crossing each item off, one by one. I’m also not above adding an item to my to-do list that wasn’t originally there, just for the joy of ticking that box.

As Oliver Burkeman writes in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, the problem with to-do lists is that they are never done. I usually make weekly to-do lists, but often, items from last week’s to-do list carry over into the next week because they didn’t get done. Those lingering tasks gets added to new tasks. There is always a new item to add the to-do list and the list keeps growing instead of shrinking. I become sunk under the impossibility of ever really accomplishing anything.

And as Burkeman points out in his book, being a person who gets through their to-do list efficiently isn’t always a good thing. The person who is disciplined about replying to people’s emails is rewarded only with…more emails. But the person who never answers emails? People often give up and stop emailing them. They figure it out on their own or ask someone else. Contrary to what we’re taught to believe, efficiency isn’t actually rewarded.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Crossing items off the to-do list is satisfying, but the looming un-done items stare out at me in a judgmental sort of way. And, let’s be honest, we could all use with a lot less judgement in this particular historical moment.

That’s one reason why I’m switching from a to-do list to a done good list. Obviously, if the bad grammar bothers you, you’re welcome to call it your did well list or your good deeds list. Either way, the done good list is a list of all the good things I did that day. I get to define “good” however I want. You should, too.

This is also inspired partly by Oliver Burkeman, who suggests a done list as a good substitute for a to-do list. A list of things you’ve already accomplished is potentially less accusatory than the to-do list with those items that seem to never get done. The done list also emphasizes the positive—all the things you have managed to find time to do instead of all the lingering tasks that are still undone.

The list I’m working on, though, isn’t just anything I’ve done. The done-good list is specifically for good things I’ve done. I mean, paying my dentist’s bill can certainly be seen as a good thing, in the sense that I’m allowing my dentist (who is a great guy) to go on feeding his family and what-not. But the done good list is more about all the things, big and small, that I do in a day that might make the world a better place. The done good list is all the things that might move the big, universal barometer the tiniest bit toward fair weather instead of, you know, apocalyptic hurricanes and tsunamis.

Here are some examples of things on my done good list for this week:

- Donated to PFLAG national, who are one of the lead organizations on several lawsuits blocking the presidential orders depriving trans youth of gender affirming care or the ability to play sports or, you know, to exist in the world.

- Attended our monthly library board meeting

- Brought a box of Sweettarts Hearts to my favorite bartender on Valentine’s Day because she is amazing.

- Texted my brother.

- Talked to strangers while at the bar with my favorite bartender.

- Checked in with a friend.

- Talked my husband into going to lunch after a rough morning with a house project

As you can see, my list consists of mostly small things. I didn’t march in the streets. I didn’t run for office. I didn’t even call my representatives.

Most of the things I did were within my immediate milieu. They were things I could directly see or touch. Besides PFLAG and texting my brother, they did not involve screens. In a lot of ways, my list doesn’t seem to add up to much.

I think that’s the way a lot of us are feeling lately. Like the things we’re doing don’t add up to much. The first Trump presidency started out with the Women’s March, which felt so uplifting. Yes, shit was going to get bad, but we knew that we would fight back.

There is no Women’s March this time around, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t happening. There are protests happening…they’re pretty much daily in DC. There are also protests at state capitols around the country. And at interstate overpasses and Tesla dealerships. There’ a plan in the works for a nation-wide general strike.

Things are happening, but as Rebecca Solnit writes at Lithub, nothing is going to be fast. That’s not how change works most of the time. We love the narrative of the conversion experience. A single moment in which everything changes. But most of the time, the shift from seeing the world one way to seeing it differently happens in slow motion, over the course of years or decades.

The same is true for social movements. I was just reading a novel about the independence movement in India. It’s clear that so many people thought Gandhi’s strategies were both insane and doomed to failure. Indians were going to expel the British without resorting to violence? The leader of the movement was going to march across the continent and…make salt? Seriously?

Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash

In the beginning of the movement, journalists were not paying attention to what Gandhi was doing in India. Many British people felt that Indians simply weren’t capable of governing themselves. It took decades to finally achieve Indian independence and for much of that time, it seemed like not much was happening.

What was happening, though, was that Gandhi was enlisting more and more people into the movement, often in very small ways. Poor Indians donating what little they had to the movement. Or joining Gandhi on his march to the sea. Individual people beginning to believe that India could, in fact, gain its independence. The tiny things added up.

The done good list honors this truth—that tiny things add up. It’s a way to remind ourselves of this truth. It’s a way to remind us to keep doing the good things, even if we don’t see the results right away. Even if we don’t see the results for weeks or months or years or decades.

The done good list is small, but imagine it multiplied by ten people. Or fifty. Or a hundred.

Keeping faith when nothing seems to be happening is hard. It feels very lonely. The done good list is armor against the despair that is always lurking. It is concrete proof that we have not given up. It’s evidence that we’re still taking small actions to create the kind of world we want to live in. It is, as Rebecca Solnit would say, hope in the dark.

What would be on your done good list for this week?

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My weekly list of small actions you can take is here.

Stay tuned later this week for my interview with

Henriette Lazaridis

and

Anjali M Duva

of

Galiot Press Substack

about the joys of starting a small press.

I didn’t put this on my list, but I also posted two chapters from my book, Throw Like a Girl, Cheer Like a Boy, on my Substack. These chapters are about gender in sports and contain lots of information for those looking to study up on what’s at stake as well as what’s wrong with excluding transgender people and people with intersex conditions from competing. Links below!