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Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that a task is a verb plus a noun.

Your to-do list doesn't actually tell you what to do unless it states the actions that you need to take.

Today's tip comes from my before-breakfast interview with productivity expert Charlie Gilke.

When we talked a few months ago, he noted that a to-do list should contain verb-nown constructs,

as he put it.

He illustrated this by pointing out that common to-do list items like podcast and Jane aren't

actually tasks. Record podcast and call Jane would be tasks. So would recommend the daily podcast to Carl and get birthday gift for Jane. Now,

clearly, those are very different to-dos. A noun alone, like podcast or Jane, does not tell you what

you need to do. You need more information. And while it is quite possible that you would remember what podcast or Jane mean in your

contexts, this does require a little bit more mental effort.

When people feel overwhelmed or fatigued looking at their to-do lists,

I think it is often because these to-do lists aren't clear.

And the extra effort to figure out what exactly you need to do can make it difficult to get started.

One way around this, which Charlie recommends, is writing your to-do list as though it is intended for someone else.

That way, when you get to the task, you'll know what you meant by the phrase on your list.

Writing or typing just a few more words to clarify the task can save your future self-confusion

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