To-do lists suck.

To-do lists get long. They turn into a big ugly bag of tasks, with no useful ordering. They often grow faster than you can complete them, leaving you with this endless burden of things you feel you ought to be doing but can never finish.

The 3-Tier To-Do List is my solution to this problem.

Instead of putting all your tasks into one to-do list, separate your tasks into 3 tiers: Must-Do, Would Be Awesome, and Would Be Nice. Here’s what goes in each tier:

Creating a 3-Tier To-Do List

Tier 1: Must-Do

Will something really bad happen if you don’t do this task? If yes, it’s Tier 1. Otherwise, it doesn’t qualify.

Tier 2: Would Be Awesome

Will something awesome happen if you do this task? If yes, it’s Tier 2. Otherwise, it doesn’t qualify.

Tier 3: Would Be Nice

Everything else goes here.

Example: Writing a sales page

This is what my dumb to-do list looked like before I came up with the 3-Tier To-Do List:

• come up with headline
• come up with subtitle
• write subheaders
• write copy
• make it look pretty
• round up some testimonials
• record a video
• make sure the buy button works
• make sure the buying process makes sense and goes smoothly
• make a cool table with checkmarks near the bottom
• ask Kyeli to review it

Now let’s break it down by tier.

We’ll go through these items, one by one, and put each one into the appropriate tier.

• come up with headline
  Tier 1. If I don’t have a headline, nobody will know what I’m selling, and something bad will happen. Namely, nobody will sign up.

• come up with subtitle
  Tier 2. I guess nothing horrible would happen without a subtitle, but it would be awesome to explain the benefits in a concise way.

• write subheaders
  Tier 1. Without subheaders, I’ll have a massive wall of text that nobody would read, and nobody will sign up.

• write copy
  I want to say Tier 1, because without copy, there’s nothing for people to read. But “write copy” is too big and vague. I’m going to break it up into three tasks.
  • Tier 1: write a crappy first draft of the copy, just barely good enough to be non-embarrassing
  • Tier 2: one editing pass to make any changes that would make the copy significantly more clear and compelling
  • Tier 3: tweak the copy until I’m totally happy with it

  This is the NaNoWriMo insight – writing without editing is way easier and faster, and you can always edit later.

  Whenever you add an item to Tier 1, check to see if you could break it up. For example, my Tier 1 item from earlier, “come up with headline”, could have been renamed to “come up with good-enough version of headline”, and then we could have added a Tier 2 item “revise headline to make it awesome”.

• make it look pretty
  Split as follows:
  • Tier 1: make it look like it wasn’t created by a highschool student from the noughties who was just learning HTML
  • Tier 2: make it look professional and on-brand
  • Tier 3: tweak all the little tiny things that probably only I care about or even notice
• round up some testimonials
  Tier 2. Nothing bad will happen without them, but it’s good to show people what others’ experiences have been. It’ll help them feel safe to sign up and also give them a better sense of what they might get out of it.

• record a video
  Tier 3. Sure, this would be nice, but would it be awesome? I don’t think it qualifies for Tier 2.

• make sure the buy button works
  Tier 1. This is really bad if it doesn’t get done.

• make sure the buying process makes sense and goes smoothly
  Tier 2. This one is tough. I want to make it Tier 1, because I would be really embarrassed if someone signed up and then I gave them incorrect or poorly worded instructions. But it’s a solvable problem. Maybe someone gets confused or upset, but we can sort things out and it’ll be okay. I guess this is really Tier 2.

• make a cool table with checkmarks near the bottom
  Tier 2. Those tables are awesome for making it really clear what you’re buying and everything you’re getting.

• ask Kyeli to review it
  Tier 2. Kyeli often catches an important thing I overlook.

My example 3-Tier To-Do List

Putting it all together, our 3-Tier To-Do List looks like this:

Tier 1: Must-Do

• come up with good-enough version of headline
• come up with headline
• write subheaders
• write a crappy first draft of the copy, just barely good enough to be non-embarrassing
• make it look like it wasn’t created by a highschool student from the noughties who was just learning HTML
• make sure the buy button works

Tier 2: Would Be Awesome

• revise headline to make it awesome
• come up with subtitle
• one editing pass to make any changes that would make the copy significantly more clear and compelling
• make it look professional and on-brand
• round up some testimonials
• make sure the buying process makes sense and goes smoothly
• make a cool table with checkmarks near the bottom
• ask Kyeli to review it

Tier 3: Would Be Nice

• tweak the copy until I’m totally happy with it
• tweak all the little tiny things that probably only I care about or even notice
• record a video

Isn’t that awesome? Now here’s how you use it.

How to use your 3-Tier To-Do List

Tier 1: Must-Do

First, complete everything on your Tier 1 list before moving on to Tier 2.

When you finish those items, you’re Tier 1 Done.

Breathe. Take a break. Relax. Now, you know that nothing bad is going to happen, because you put all the “something bad might happen if I don’t do this” items in Tier 1, and now they’re complete.

You are now completely done with all your “to-do” or “must-do” items. Everything else is a “could-do“, not a “to-do”. You are Tier 1 Done and everything else is an extra bonus that you could do if you want – or not.

If some crazy emergency happens, you can drop everything to handle it, because you’re Tier 1 Done. Your project might not get done awesomely, because that’s Tier 2, but at least it will be non-horrible.

This is a big advantage of the 3-Tier To-Do List: You get a rough version of your entire project completed quickly. With a dumb to-do list, you’d have a bunch of things half-done instead of all the important things done enough.

Tier 2: Would Be Awesome

Next, you’ve got some Tier 2 “could-do” items. It would be awesome to do these. So do as many as you have time to do.

But remember, this Tier 2 list is not a to-do list, it’s a could-do list. Remember to hang onto that feeling of spaciousness that comes with being Tier 1 Done.

Tier 3: Would Be Nice

Never do Tier 3 items. Life’s too short and Tier 3 is simply not worth it. Do something fun, rest, play, or begin a new project and start on its Tier 1 items.

Personally, I find it useful to trick myself by saying “I’ll move on to Tier 3 if time permits”, but then I always run out of time and move on to the next thing. I think I’ve done like one Tier 3 item in my entire life, and I did it because it was fun and I was in the mood to do it. (And I was already Tier 1 Done and Tier 2 Done.)

Tricking myself is helpful to avoid resisting putting items on my Tier 3 list. It’s easier for me to put them onto a list instead of into the trash, because of that 1% chance I’ll actually do it.

Tiers or tears

The 3-Tier To-Do List can help you feel spacious, and it can stop you from wasting time on tasks that feel important but actually aren’t.

Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed, I remind myself “Tiers or tears!” If I don’t want my to-do list to make me cry, I’ve got to split it up into the 3 Tiers.