Granted, I don’t usually include the words “diversion” and “contrive” to describe what I need to do on a given day, but our respective lists achieve the same thing. I won’t lie - Franklin’s to-do list doesn’t look entirely far off from mine. He started his list with the question, “What good shall I do this day?” But his intention behind the list wasn’t exactly to get stuff done - instead, he used it as a way of making sure he contributed something positive each day. In his 1791, Benjamin Franklin recorded what was one of the earliest-known forms of a to-do list. What did that look like, once upon a time? And what does it look like for us today? As it turns out, the answer to the latter is different for everyone, and we’ve identified some of the ways people make to-do lists work for them. And while they’ve evolved significantly over the years, they still stand to serve a pretty similar purpose: To plan what we need to do.

They date back at least to the 1700s, as you’ll see below, and have been the subject of glee, contention, and productivity advice alike ever since. So if we want to remember anything, we have to write it down.

We’re so busy jumping ahead to whatever's next that we forget what we were doing in the first place. It’s just that our minds move too quickly.

Organised todo list printable