Life Is Not One Big To-Do List
Life is more than a series of boxes we can check and a climb up the ladder of success.
I log in to LinkedIn and the first thing I immediately see is a five-step process about how to advance your career.
I log on to Twitter and the first thing I read is a twenty-post thread on how you can make your first million.
I pull up Instagram and the first post that populates is a graphic that shows 10 steps about how to lose belly fat in 10 days.
I turn on a podcast and the first thing I hear is the five things I should do when I wake up.
It is the next thing then the next thing then the next thing. It is one big to-do list. Once I accomplish one thing I work towards the next and then the next. Life has become optimized to be a continual to-do list and frankly, I have not found growing a business, losing belly fat, or advancing my career to be that simple. It is trying to make life simple when most of it is not. It leads us to believe we control every aspect of the future when we largely don’t.
To-do lists give us a sense of security; it is like a warm blanket on a cold night. It reassures us that we are doing something in this world. It provides explicit proof that we are making something of ourselves. We have done these things and made this stuff happen. The list, when checked off, is an undeniable stack of proof of the things we have accomplished, no matter how little. It helps us to feel good.
However, it seems that it can be a dangerous line to walk. Life then just blurs together, and any solitude is just time working towards what is next to do while searching for the external validation the list provides. Life and the days become a series of check marks.
Life is not a to-do list.
Life through college is largely defined. Our lives are an impromptu to-do list during that time. We need a framework to follow in our early years because we are young, dumb, and naïve. We need the structure school gives us to navigate life. After we leave college, we obtain our first job. Everything you worked for is finally realized. Now being an adult, society has set forth scripts of success that we must obtain. The most obvious one is working towards owning a home.
We are led to believe that we should only rent for a few years. Anything beyond that is just throwing money down the drain. We must build equity in a home; it is stupid not to. Rather quickly after college, we must check the to-do of owning a house off our list and we must show to the world we have done something during our time as a young professional. Being a homeowner provides tangible evidence of us having done something. Aside from the fact that homes are not a surefire investment and have shown to be largely flat in terms of inflation adjusted actual returns, it doesn’t need to be a race to get there. For a young professional renting provides peace of mind and renting just lets you live. Your rent is the maximum you pay while a mortgage is the minimum you pay.
I remember being told at the beginning of my career that I was wasting money renting. I was lighting money on fire. I should be working towards owning a home. Except, what is the rush? Why must I own a home? For no other reason than checking it off the list and having some external validation that I am now a homeowner? It is a part of being in the rat race too. All those around you own a home so you might as well too. If you win the rat race and buy a home, you are still a rat. What is the rush? The reason why houses are sound investments is because people sit on them and allow compounding to work. Not because homeowners are one of the first ones to enter the market, one of the first ones to win their race towards home ownership in their age group.
We can become infatuated with the idea of crossing everything off our list but constantly doing that is a way for the days to merge with no meaningful memories to remember. The days all look the same. The beauty of it is it is not that easy; you can’t cross one thing off the list and immediately think you are ready to take on the next step outlined. Life would be a lot easier if it was really that way. To-do lists give us a false sense of control in a wildly unpredictable life.
In our careers, we seem to follow this belief, this belief that if we just get the senior position three years in, then we can get manager two years later, and then senior manager role another two years after that, and it goes on. If we follow these steps everything will be fine. It is plotting and setting out a list of what we should do to reach that goal of senior manager eight years from today. Not to mention, we outline what we should do each year, month, or even day to ensure we remain on track. We prioritize the things that “must” be accomplished.
Many of us see our lives through the metaphor of a journey up the ladder of success. When we think about leaving a lasting impact or living a meaningful life, our mind defaults to the thought of achieving something external. Performing some service, building some business, or creating some product that will have an impact on the world. We can check ourselves because as we ascend each rung of the career ladder, we can step back and realize how much we have accomplished by seeing how far up from the bottom of the career leader we are. We can see what has been crossed off the career to-do list.
Unfortunately, it is never that easy because no matter how much you plan and try to account for every variable, your to-do list is bound to change or not get completed. It is not a straight ascent up the career ladder. You are bound to have to retrace your steps and go back down a few rungs at some point. It is hard. I think of this quote from Alex Hormozi,
“You’re going to lose sleep.
You’ll doubt whether it’ll work.
You’ll stress to make ends meet.
You won’t finish your to do list.
You’ll wonder if you made the right call – and have no way to know for years.
This is what ‘hard’ feels like.
And that’s okay.”
Life is not a series of boxes we can check. Life is much harder than that. The to-do list doesn’t guarantee success because it is hard to predict how things may turn out. And to put it quite frankly, it is never that easy. To try to dumb it down to be something that simple is one way to be perpetually frustrated. And sadly, a lot of it is out of our control. A ten-step process to lose belly fat in ten days is probably missing a few key elements. If it only took ten steps in ten days to lose belly fat, no one would have belly fat. There is so much more to it.
I prioritize my health but some of these health measures have taken it too far. The protocols we must follow are too restrictive. Life is meant to be enjoyed and not everything must be optimized, meet some protocol, or checked off a list. The perfect example is probably Bryan Johnson who spends $2 million a year on his body to retain his youth. He has quite the morning routine that he hopes will help him live until he is 120. However, few, if any, have the disposable income to support a similar habit. Instead, we resort to protocols subscribed by health professionals and sometimes, we can take these protocols too seriously.
Andrew Huberman has a solid podcast in which he lays out ways to better your everyday health. Except, sometimes people take it a little too far. We think we must follow all of his advice when really we are meant to find what works for us.
Life is a lot of finding what works for you. It is not about following every single protocol or every single way to maximize your productivity. It is about taking advice, disposing of it if it doesn’t work for you, utilizing it if it does. I think of what Hunter S. Thompson said on advice,
“I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.”
And I don’t think Huberman is the blind leading the blind, either. Instead, don’t become a servant to all the habits laid forth. Don’t think everything suggested has to turn into a massive to-do list. Don’t think you must accomplish everything the professionals do or you must follow the same routine they do. Protocol and productivity maxxing are not meant for everyone. And maybe for the guy above, the sleep protocol is just not meant to be for him.
Worship your to-do list and it will never be enough because you are always wanting to accomplish the next task. It is worship that you just gradually slip into each day. Eventually, you reach a point where if it is not in line with your to-do list you become frustrated. You have become a servant to the list. Just as we saw above. The smallest inconveniences interrupt what you must get done because it is now ingrained in who you are, it is now a part of you. It is how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
It is the same thing about our beliefs around money. We live in a perpetual state of needing just a little bit more money to be happy. We worship our net worth, so it becomes the default setting in how we measure our happiness. Harvard Professor Michael Norton asked over 2,000 millionaires to rate their happiness on a scale from 1-10, and the amount of money they would need to get to a 10. To no surprise, mostly everyone said they would need 2-3 times more to be perfectly happy.
It is always just needing to check one more thing off the list of things to do. Just get there and we will be happy. Except, it is always just one more thing. It is a never-ending ladder that always desires more. It is always needing the next step. Most to-do lists worry too much about the future when we just need to worry about the now. You can’t control the future but you can control the now.
Now, in a world that is not run by a to-do list, how do we find solace in the fact that many things are out of our control? Well first off, it is certainly a struggle because it is continual work. It is certainly something I have struggled with because I want to be in control. I want to check things off the list. I want to feel like I have my future in my hands and frankly, a lot of it I don’t. I always go back to the advice that Dan Lanning gave,
“Everyone has goals and aspirations, you know how you get those? You be the best where you are at. It’s not worrying about the next thing, it’s about worrying what’s right in front of you, six inches in front of your face.”
And the beauty of it, is that belief seems to apply to anything in life because, for any aspect of your life, you can control what is six inches in front of you. Being the best at where you are each day is something you can certainly check off your to-do list when you go to bed each night.
Appreciate you reading.
-Scantron