I used to put only my most major, most important tasks on my to-do list, things that may take more than a day to accomplish and that I would really set my mind on. The problem with that was, when I didn’t feel like working on a major task, I didn’t get anything done at all. I would sit there trying to hype myself up to do the big tasks.  Then, the little tasks would pile up until I was way behind on everything.

So, I started putting a variety of things on my to-do list, some things that take hours or days, some things that can be done in a half hour or so, and even short 10-minute tasks. Now, there’s always something I can convince myself to do, so if I’m not in the mood to work on a big task now, I can get the little things done so they’re out of the way when I am in the mood to work on the big task (or when the deadline on the big task is looming and I’ve procrastinated it so long, I must work on it at the expense of everything else!).

It also feels good and is motivating to check stuff off the list, even if it’s just something little!

On a related note, I just bought this shirt: http://tr.im/yW1c !