My INFP-Style To-Do List

So this is another one of my INFP-style productivity posts. I had written one about goal setting several years ago and now I will examine the practice of making a to-do list and how I, in my INFPness, approach this.

The to-do list is a staple of any productivity plan. Generally, it is created and completed in an analytical manner, taking care to prioritize the tasks of the day and making sure that they get done.

Well, welcome to my to-do list…

At the start of each work day, I sit down and think to myself: what absolutely needs to get done today? And I see what comes to mind.

Now, here’s something very important — I don’t write any of this down. Nowhere in the making of my to-do list do I actually write anything down, and believe it or not, I find this much less stressful than it’s opposite.

Okay, so back to what absolutely must get done today. I see what comes to mind and generally I come up with one or two things. This part is incredibly important. When thinking of the most essential tasks of the day, it can’t be very many things, otherwise each task becomes less and less essential.

When I think of what must get done today, it could be something that’s attached to a deadline or it could be something that must get done before I can move forward with something else. There may be some other criteria I use as well, but because I’m doing this intuitively I don’t always know. I go by feeling. That tells me what is essential for the day.

So once I have that very short mental list, I know that these one or two things are the minimum of what I need to get done that day. If I do nothing else but those tasks I will be moving forward. And what that means is anything else I do is gravy.

The other thing I do here is figure out when during the day I’m going to do them. Just because a task is essential doesn’t mean it’s very big or takes a lot of energy. I reserve mornings for higher energy tasks, and afternoons for lower energy tasks, so I fit in my essential tasks where I need them.

Okay, cool. Now that I have that very simple plan, I start in on my day. For me, that means asking “what’s next?” over and over until I’m done.

However, like I said earlier, I keep in mind that I need to go with the flow of my daily energy, which for me means, things that require more energy in the morning and things that require less energy in the afternoons.

So in the morning when I ask “what’s next?” I limit myself to higher energy activities and in the afternoon when I ask that question, I’m picking from lower energy activities.

I know I’m done for the day when I ask “what’s next?” and nothing comes to mind. And I’m a firm believer that if I’ve reached the point where nothing else needs to get done, I stop working and go live the rest of my life.

So there you have it — my to-do list where nothing gets written down and I move forward by intuition and feeling. Works for me. 🙂

Amanda Linehan is the author of North. Her newest novel is called Lakeside, about an unusual teenage girl in an unusual small town. 

***Check out my latest release, Productivity For INFPs, now. Available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes&Noble.com, Google Play, Kobo and more.