How To Make the Best To-Do List For School

There's something just so satisfying about getting things done, you know? Checking the boxes off in your to-do list, walking the dog, sending emails, doing your laundry. You know, it makes you feel good inside. It makes you feel like you're not as lazy as you probably are.

But if you're like me, you often get distracted easily and actually don't get stuff done. Maybe some days you lack the motivation to do stuff in general. Say you have a paper due on Thursday; it's currently Monday. There's no way you're touching that paper till like late on Wednesday or maybe to the last like possible hour or last couple of hours on the Thursday. You get the idea.

That's not the way things have to be. I'm about to tell you a secret that will make you more productive, perhaps even more productive than you thought you ever were. And it all starts with a checklist.

Now, I know what you're thinking: a checklist? I make checklists every single day. It doesn't really help. I just make them. It makes me feel good; it makes me feel like I've actually done the things on the checklist, but I never actually end up taking all those boxes. That's because you're doing checklists wrong.

And I used to do checklists wrong all the time until I discovered this epic tip. I mean, this looks like your average checklist, right? But it's actually so, so bad because all of these tasks vary in importance, effort, concentration. It causes more trouble than not having a checklist at all. Basically, never make checklists like this again.

So here's how to make an effective checklist.

Step One: Brain dump. Basically, dump every short-term task and goal onto a piece of paper. Anything and everything that comes to your head. The purpose of this is to free up mental RAM so your mind isn't so cluttered. Empty your thoughts onto the paper and become clear-headed and more productive.

Step Two is to prioritize everything on that list. Rank every task on that list from most urgent to least urgent.

Step Three is to cut. Cut out any tasks that can wait till tomorrow. Put them on another list. Put them on another list and forget about them completely until you’ve finished everything on the main list.

Step Four is to chunk. And shout out to Improvement Pill for his idea on this one. Basically, you take all the items on your main list and break them down into their most basic parts. Each of these parts should take no more than about half an hour to complete each.

Take making a YouTube video, for example. I should break this down into half an hour chunks because making a YouTube video is a very long creative process. So to see that task on an average checklist makes me just look at it and want to avoid it.

Write script first half, write script second half, record voiceover, record FaceCam stuff (which is what this is), cut the raw footage, add the music, title, sound effects, miscellaneous, render and upload. Those all take roughly about half an hour. Those are manageable chunks that I can really wrap my head around.

So basically, rinse and repeat the process for every single thing on your urgent list, and you'll have nice little bite-sized chunks that you can basically chip away at. Because a mountain is climbed one step at a time.

That’s how you make your checklists like this every day, and you'll be tearing through tasks like the tank that tore through Mr. Bean's car in that really, really sad Mr. Bean episode.

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All right, catch you in the next video!