Topological Distorting (or Dave’s 10 Steps to Productivity)

ByDavid

How do you tackle an overwhelming to-do list?

Do you meticulously prioritize, or do you just dive in and hope for the best?

We just returned from visiting the kids and I saw that my to do list had increased a zillion-fold. So once again, instead of getting to work, I started thinking about what I wanted to post today. To stimulate my thinking, I looked at some past columns and found this one from almost exactly a year ago.

Here’s what I wrote back then:

  1. On Friday, I sat down and wrote out the list of three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve combine two of them eleven things I have to get done over the weekend.
  2. I stared at the list.
  3. I looked up “prioritizing” online.
  4. I found the phrase “topological sorting,” which seems like an operations management concept related to prioritizing and critical paths.
  5. It’s more complicated than that.
  6. I tried to find an app that will tell me what to do first.
  7. I decided “topological distorting” was a clever play on words and a worthy title for today’s post.
  8. I looked that up too and found that “topological distorting” is actually its own completely unrelated thing and the picture representing this phenomenon reminded me of the Build Your Own Camera articles from the Boys Life magazines I used to read. 
  9. So I looked up Boys Life magazine and found it! It’s been renamed Scout Life magazine.
  10. I looked at the Jokes section. Some things never change. Like the jokes.

Okay, enough reminiscing. We’re back in 2025. And the key lesson here is the same as it was last year:  just get to work.

  • Pick something. Anything. Start.
  • If your gut tells you to switch tasks, trust it.
  • If someone is waiting for you, bump it up the list.
  • And if you are waiting for you, don’t ignore yourself. Set a time, make the appointment, and keep it.

I’m still figuring this out, and maybe you are too. How do you prioritize? Drop your best tips in the comments!

#ProductivityHacks #GetStarted #TimeManagement #Prioritization #JustDoIt #MentoringMatters