It's a harsh truth that you NEVER finish your To Do list.
Despite attempting to do so every day, there are always more tasks than we can ever manage.
In the quest for an extra tick or another small victory, it's always tempting to keep going a little longer - to sacrifice some of your evening, or a portion of your weekend to try and reduce the list.
It's easy to see why this happens. Our To Do list gives us a clear idea of what has to be done, exactly what an extra half hour might achieve, and the promise of a dopamine hit when it's complete.
On the other hand, logging off for the day releases us into that unstructured time where everything is less clear cut. We may well find ourselves doomscrolling social media with nothing to show for it, or faced with dead time and no plans. So much for quality leisure time!
The key to this is to elevate the importance of our leisure time, treating it with the same degree of significance that we attach to our working day.
By creating a non-work To Do list of things you can realistically hope to get done out of hours, you've got a more purposeful plan for the downtime, and a compelling reason to log off and switch to a non-work task.
This way, leisure time isn't just the empty dregs of what's left before bedtime. It's as intentional and ambitious as you want it to be. The tasks on your personal To Do list are as defined and achievable as your work tasks (though without the stress of a hard deadline!).
We find a good way of approaching this is to have smaller goals for the week (read a chapter), more moderate goals for the month (do 2 x Parkruns, dinner with friends), and bigger quarterly or annual goals (learn to drive, book a holiday, finish knitting that jumper!).
The bottom line here is that if we don't treat our leisure time with the same importance as our work hours, it will always be easy to allow 'one more task' to tip the work life balance against us.
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