October 20, 2024
Before I get into why "Get a haircut" and other similar TODO items are generally unhelpful, I need to talk about the purpose of TODOs and having a TODO list.
In my eyes, a TODO list is useful as a sort of separate brain or external memory, similar to notes. If you keep all your things to do in your brain, there's a really good chance you'll end up forgetting at least some of them. But, when you write everything in a TODO list (or in a TODO application), it's always there. This is useful both because it enables you to do everything you want to do, and also track that you've done it (like you thought you would).
Now, getting back to "Get a haircut", let's distill precisely what we want accomplish here. Well, it's pretty simple, I just want my hair to be shorter. In reality, though, the steps to do that are not just 'have hair be cut'. Instead, it's broken down into several potential steps:
Some of these steps may change, and some might not even be there. But typically you'll need to at least schedule the appointment and then go there. Admittedly, you could just get the same haircut every time at the same stylist. In that case, maybe "Get a haircut" works fine for you. But, the concept of breaking down TODOs is probably still relevant for other tasks.
So, you might be asking, "Why can't I just track steps 1-4 in this one task?" The problem is this essentially creates "invisible" TODO items. You still need to do all steps 1-4, but now all of a sudden it's just tracked in a single item. So, you'll end up needing to remember to do these things, and needing to do them meanwhile they're essentially untracked. If the strength of TODO lists is to get things out of your brain and prevent you from just having to remember to do stuff, then you're not really accomplishing that goal if you do this.
So, the next most obvious question is "How do I break down TODOs, then?" Let's start with what our goal is: to get things you want to do out of your head. The first step is just to write the TODO item however you're thinking it. Just mind dump it out there. From there, I'd first decide if it's something you want to do in the near future. If it is, we can look at the TODO item and attempt to break it down. If not, however, we can likely put off breaking it down until we decide to work on it. Frankly, trying to break down all your TODO items until they're completely perfect is just not practical. Plus, odds are you might not even still want to do some in the future.
So, how do you break an item down? For me, it helps to try and think about some questions:
We basically want to determine other hidden steps that will block us from just directly performing the task.
For most items, figuring out how to break them down should be relatively simple when you just think about it. In the haircut example, one usually knows if they have a style they want for their hair, or a stylist picked out already. Likewise, we we'll want to schedule something in advance to simplify going there.
Some tasks, on the other hand, can be very difficult to break down into easily achievable chunks. These tasks will generally be more abstract, open-ended, or just larger and more complex in scope. Let's take another TODO item in my TODO list right now and take a look at it. It's simply titled "Make a rupee!" Okay, great, Luke, let's go out and just make a rupee. Super easy.
Alright, there's a bunch of questions we actually need to ask ourselves here, and some are dependent upon the answers of others, and some require research. Let's break it down:
There's clearly a lot to learn here before I can actually make a mould, and this probably doesn't capture every question we might have.
How we break this TODO item down might vary depending on how granular we want to get. We could decide to have one big learning step, or we could break each piece of learning into its own task. Let's give that second one a go:
And eventually!
Obviously, a project like this will likely require iteration and multiple attempts to get just right, and there will likely be unexpected bumps along the way. But, breaking down the task provides a reasonable starting point so you can get going, and ensures you're not keeping everything in your head and forgetting a step or two.
As a closing remark, I'll say that not all TODO items need to be split up this way. Some are simple enough that splitting them out is an exercise in wasting your own time. But, sometimes breaking items down like this can save you time and effort in the long-run. Also, it's sometimes relatively simple to break your items down when you add them, but most of the time you probably just want to jot something down to remember you need to do it. You can revisit the TODO item later and break it down when you actually want to start on it. BTW - I currently use Todoist for my TODO list and it works pretty well. It's free to start and syncs across devices. Give it a go!