Why Your To-Do List Is Killing Your Productivity

Daily Boost - Motivation and Coaching

Scott Smith

Health & Fitness, Business, Education, Self-improvement

3.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Daily Boost Podcast Show Notes Why Your To-Do List Is Killing Your Productivity October 3, 2025 | Episode 5195 Host: Scott Smith Episode Description Your to-do list isn't helping you get more done. It's actually sabotaging your productivity. Scott breaks down the real reason successful people feel overwhelmed despite having all the right systems. Spoiler alert: It's not about adding more techniques or apps. This episode reveals a simple four-step approach that eliminates decision fatigue and gets the right things done. Perfect for anyone tired of running in circles while their important goals collect dust. Featured Story Scott opens up about his own productivity struggles and why he's considering a complete theme change for his show. He shares his honest moment of realizing that even productivity experts can fall into the "more is better" trap. The breakthrough came when he stopped trying to organize everything and started throwing away what didn't matter first. Like cleaning out those 50,000 albums we used to have (kids, ask your mom what an album is). This personal revelation led to his current system that keeps successful people focused on what actually moves the needle. Important Points The more you remove, the easier it gets to have exactly what you want. Stop adding productivity systems and start eliminating tasks that don't deserve your attention. Four D's beat endless to-do lists every time. Delete, Delegate, Delay, or Do - run every task through this filter and watch your overwhelm disappear. Three important things per day is enough. When you're done with three, call it done - even if there's another 10 or 20 things waiting. Memorable Quotes "The more you take away, the more you clear things out, the easier it gets to have exactly what you want." "Sometimes the buck stops with you. Now that everything else is off your plate, you have time to do it, don't you?" "Winning the day is about making sure the most important things in your life get done. What's it going to be today?" Scott's Three-Step Approach Audit your current tasks. Write down everything on your to-do list and run each item through the four D's - can you delete, delegate, delay, or do it. Ask the daily priority question. What's the most important thing to do today? Limit yourself to three things and call it done when they're finished. Set up a delegation system. Identify three things you could get someone else to handle and create a simple handoff process you can repeat. Connect With Me Search for The Daily Boost on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Email: [email protected] Main Website: https://motivationtomove.com YouTube: https://youtube.com/dailyboostpodcast Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/motivationtomove Facebook Group: https://dailyboostpodcast.com/facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Their way just got even better with the one and only Tiary Henri joining us as our new ambassador.
0:07.0	Expect big moments, great rewards and much more.
0:11.0	18 plus Tis and C Supply. Fet the Responsible Way, come on in.
0:30.7	Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy.
0:33.8	Every Friday should be a happy Friday, and if you didn't have it happy, I just gave
0:36.9	you one. You can take it and keep it for yourself.
0:39.9	Man, it's been a fun week. So many of you sending me emails, Scott at Dailyboospodcast.com, just saying hey, and a lot of you saying, hey, Scott, I know you're busy, take your time responding, and I don't. I just respond right away because that's what I said I would do. and it's messing with my productivity, sort of.
0:54.5	But I'm pretty good at being productive,
0:55.8	so I didn't mess it up that much.
0:57.0	But today I'm going to teach you what I said I would do. And it's messing with my productivity, sort of. But I'm pretty good at being productive, so it didn't mess it up that much. But today, I'm going to teach you what I do, which may help you be more productive. And I know this is something everybody's always trying to do. There is just way too much to get done. And we'll deal with it today, okay? Hang on for the right. It is the daily boost from Motivation to Move.com. I'm doing this thing a long time. We're coming up on 20 years. The end of this year will be 20, 20 years, and I almost stopped last year. I almost said I'm going to give this up and retire, but I just have too much fun doing it. It's a good thing. And it helps a lot of people, and it's been fun for me. So it's kind of, I'll do it until the day I die.
1:44.0	Yes, my name is Scott Samad. Thanks for stopping by. I did get another email from a young lady who said, Scott, I used to listen to you about 9, 10 years ago. She was 19, 20 years old. And kind of got away from it a little bit. And then I came back and I found you on YouTube. I was listening on YouTube. and then you stopped updating YouTube.
1:46.9	And I just only listen to my podcast on YouTube.
1:47.5	That's all I do.
1:48.6	A pretty common for a 30 year old these days. YouTube is the biggest distributor of podcasts in the world now. Didn't
1:53.4	used to be that way. That's really in the past year or two. And so I got to write her back a note.
1:59.4	Good news. Starting in about a week or so, maybe 10 days. This podcast goes back on YouTube, Daily Boost podcast on YouTube. We have our own channel. There's a bunch of stuff there right now. It's a little bit older, maybe a year and a half, two years old. But we'll start posting every single day over there. The same show you get here will be there.
2:19.4	So if you're a YouTube person, it's coming your way.
2:34.9	So get ready for it. I'll let you know when it's there, okay? Let's start productivity. And let's start by saying this. Productivity is one of those things. I do a lot of coaching. I do at least two or three group coaching calls a week with a good number of people on these calls. and there are some things that I just don't like to talk about,
2:36.1	and one of those is productivity,
2:34.7	and the reason is because the minute I have a two-way
2:38.7	conversation with a bunch of people about productivity and they can actually start a discussion,
2:42.3	which is what I do on these groups, it just goes down the rabbit hole. It's just crazy. If you
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