Dear To-Do List, It’s Not Me, It’s You
How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List
Have you ever noticed that when you truly need to get something done… you do?
It’s the morning before a trip and suddenly we’re laundry-folding, suitcase-packing, pet-food-stocking superheroes.
It’s five minutes before guests arrive and we’re whipping around with a dishcloth like we’re auditioning for a cleaning commercial.
It’s tax day and, look at that, we’ve never been so organized with our receipts in our lives.
When we need to do something, we rise to the occasion. Every. Single. Time.
And yet… we still carry a mental backpack stuffed with to-dos and shoulds.
Let’s talk about that backpack.
It’s invisible, and oh, is it heavy.
In it, we’ve got:
“I should clean the oven.”
“I should organize my inbox.”
“I should get my oil changed.”
“I should call my dentist.”
“I should start exercising again.”
It’s like lugging around a bag of bricks. And if we’re being honest, we will clean the oven the second it starts smoking like a chimney.
We will get the oil changed the day we can no longer look at the reminder on the dashboard.
We will call the dentist the moment a tooth sends an urgent throb.
And the whole time before that moment arrives?
We’re carrying it.
Like a constant, low-grade hum of guilt and, more accurately, a story of not being good enough.
So here is the question… if we get things done when they need to be done, and we’re choosing to let them live in the “later” category until then, is that okay?
If we’re not forgetting, not hurting anyone, and not letting something important fall through the cracks, just handling it at the time it truly matters, why do we keep beating ourselves up for it?
Maybe what we call procrastination is sometimes just timing.
Maybe our natural rhythm is less about doing everything now and more about trusting ourselves to do it when it counts.
And if that’s the choice we’re making, and it works, then maybe it’s time to stop carrying the backpack of shoulds and the endless hovering to-do list like they are proof that we’re not doing our best.
Is there room to start seeing, and embodying, that we will rise to the occasion?
Hustle Culture and the Myth of Constant Doing
We live in a culture that loves to whisper, and sometimes shout, that our worth is tied to how much we get done and how “busy” we are.
The endless push turns our to-do list into a scoreboard instead of what it actually is: a tool.
Maybe the goal isn’t to do everything today. Maybe the goal is to do the right things, at the right time, with the least amount of mental gymnastics possible.
The Nervous System Tax
Here’s what often gets overlooked: every time we carry those shoulds and half-finished mental lists, our nervous system is paying the bill.
The brain perceives unfinished tasks as open loops. Psychology calls this the Zeigarnik effect, where our minds keep nudging us about the things we haven’t completed. That constant whisper of “don’t forget, don’t forget” keeps us hovering in a mild stress response.
And when our nervous system is in stress mode, the sympathetic state, it’s like we’re always bracing for something. Our heart rate ticks up, cortisol lingers in the bloodstream, and the body never fully drops into ease.
When we capture our to-dos, whether in a calendar or on one intentional, trusted list, we give the brain permission to stop firing those reminders. That act alone can help shift us into the parasympathetic nervous system, the state of rest, repair, and digestion.
In other words, putting our shoulds somewhere safe is more than a productivity hack. It is a kindness to the body and the brain. It tells the whole system, “We can relax now. We’ve got this handled.”
How to Lighten the Load
Here’s the magic: our brain doesn’t need us to do the thing right now. It just needs to trust that it won’t be forgotten.
When we write “buy lightbulbs” on a random piece of paper, our brain doesn’t quite relax.
When we write “buy lightbulbs” in the calendar for Thursday at 4 p.m., it sighs with relief.
The task is now contained. It’s not lost in the soup of our minds. It has a plan.
It’s like telling our brain, “You can stop nagging. We’ve booked the appointment.”
Let’s say an oil change is overdue.
Instead of thinking “I should book my oil change” 47 times in the next three weeks, we open the calendar and write:
Tuesday, 10 a.m.: Book Oil Change
Or maybe we’ve been meaning to clean out the closet.
We could carry that should around until one day we’re buried under an avalanche of sweaters.
Or, we could block Saturday, 2 p.m.: Closet Purge and trust that we’ll show up for it, just like we show up for every dentist appointment, meeting, and coffee date in the calendar.
This may sound a little too easy, and it may even sound like, “Yes, but then we ignore the appointment.” We often do this because there are no perceived consequences if we miss our own date to clean the closet.
But here’s the thing, there actually are consequences. They just don’t always show up as a messy closet. They show up in our nervous system.
Every time we carry a promise to ourselves that we don’t keep, our brain quietly stores it as evidence that we can’t be trusted. We may not consciously think this, but subconsciously it feeds the story that we’re falling short, that we’re not doing our best.
So while nothing catastrophic happens when we skip the Saturday closet purge, the real cost is how much weight we end up carrying in our bodies and minds. The guilt, the self-criticism, the nervous system running like a car revving in the wrong gear.
This is why capturing our to-dos, whether in the calendar or on one intentional list, isn’t just about productivity. It’s about reducing the silent stress tax on the nervous system and rewriting the story we tell ourselves about our capacity, our follow-through, and our enoughness.
Sometimes it’s enough to have one intentional, well-kept “house list” of to-dos, a place where we capture every single thing that needs doing. Not a dozen sticky notes scattered through the kitchen. Not half-scribbled lists in three different notebooks. One intentional list.
When we know that list exists and that we can call on it when the time is right, our brain can relax.
The magic isn’t in scheduling every task down to the minute, it’s in knowing we’ve captured it somewhere safe. Because once the brain trusts that nothing will be forgotten, it stops replaying the “don’t forget” loop that eats up so much mental energy.
The key is to buy in to our own system, whether it’s a calendar, a single list, or a mix of both. If our intention is to carry less, then we need to believe in the intentional container we’ve created for the to-dos.
That belief is what lets us set the mental backpack down and enjoy the lightness that comes with it.
Why This Feels Like Freedom
Once our shoulds are off the mental plate, we’re free to be present.
We can enjoy a lazy Sunday without the whisper of “we should be cleaning the garage” in the background.
We can go to bed without running through a mental scroll of what we’ve forgotten.
We can sip our coffee in the morning without feeling like we’re already behind.
And here’s the best part: when the task’s time actually arrives, we’ll do it, because we always do when we need to.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves the gift of permission. Permission to set it down. To put those shoulds and to-dos where they belong: in the calendar, or on the intentional list, not in our mental backpack.
And then we can enjoy the rest, knowing the important stuff will get done exactly when it needs to.
Life is too short to measure our worth by the boxes we haven’t checked.
We are already enough, even with an unfinished list. The checkmarks don’t define us, they never have.
