Make a 'Done' list

Revel in a sense of accomplishment

Longtime readers know that I am a big fan of short, focused to-do lists. Indeed, the first real “Vanderhack” was about how “To-do means today.” Ideally, each day’s to-do list is a contract with yourself. You have figured out what is most critical to get done, and you commit to doing those things.

Now, of course, stuff comes up. Stuff always comes up. That’s why the list should be short! You want to know that even when stuff comes up, you’ll do what you’ve planned. You leave enough space that the unexpected doesn’t derail the expected.

But then that raises the question — shouldn’t we get credit for doing the stuff that came up too?

To which I say, yes! You can do this by creating a “Done” list alongside your to-do list.

What did you do today?

In addition to saying what you intend to do, you say what you actually did. Every time you do something meaningful, whether it was on your original to-do list or not, you add it to the list. So this could be things like “addressed Rick’s concerns about Friday’s meeting” or “drafted the introduction to our quarterly report since Kevin claimed he needed it today” or “I reviewed April’s budget and compared it to what we actually spent.” Since a to-do list often has non-time-specific high priority items (things that need to happen in addition to your scheduled meetings), the “Done” list can particularly highlight the meetings and such you had, or perhaps important messages that you responded to.

This Done list does a few things. First, it’s good to remind ourselves that we are doing stuff! Hopefully the Done list has all your to-do items and the things that came up during the day. You can give yourself a pat on the back. And even if the day went completely off the rails from what was expected, you no doubt did something with your time. The Done list recognizes this.

Recognizing when the day is done

But I think there’s also a particular benefit for people who work flexibly and/or remotely. Indeed, I first started talking about making a Done list during the pandemic, when lots more people were working at home for the first time.

When you’re working in an office, it can feel like you’ve done your job by showing up in the morning and being at work all day. There may be problems with that mindset, but that’s a topic for another day.

For people who are new to remote work, one of the most disorienting questions is how to know whether you’ve put in an honest day’s labor. If your last call ends at 4:30 p.m., is it OK to stop working? What time should you start if no one’s looking to see if you’re at your desk?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know that ideally people in knowledge jobs aren’t just judging success based on showing up somewhere, but on what they got done. Ideally, each day you are making real progress toward important goals. Keeping a Done list can help you do that. You want to write important accomplishments on your Done list each day, so you naturally prioritize high-value tasks.

And there’s this bonus: if you ever need to convince someone that you are in fact working hard, you can just send your manager your Done list. If you are managing people, you can ask team members to keep Done lists and share them with you. That way, at your next check-in you can congratulate them on a job well…done.