Trim Your To-Do List to Make Strategy Stick

You’ve probably felt it—the mountain of ‘urgent’ tasks grows every morning, and by evening your to-do list is longer than before. It’s like playing whack-a-mole: knock down one memo and another pops up. The more you add, the more you—and your team—feel overwhelmed and frozen. I used to hide my anxiety behind ten tabs on my browser, convinced that multitasking was the badge of honor.

Then I tried something radical: I paused and wrote down every single initiative I was managing. When the sticky notes covered my desk, I realized I had no chance of giving any of them real energy. I drew a line at three items that most aligned with my organization’s core goals and put the rest away in a drawer. At first it felt scary, as if I was abandoning work. But within days, my meetings were sharper, my emails fewer, and my focus clearer. My team stopped asking why they had so many priorities and started asking how to nail the ones we all agreed mattered.

Psychologist Peter Drucker once said the key mark of effectiveness is knowing what to stop doing. By shedding low-impact work, you make room for excellence where it counts. This simplicity fuels engagement because when people see leaders cut through the noise, they know where to invest their best efforts.

First, gather every initiative on sticky notes so you can see the full scope of your work. Next, score each one on its strategic impact, then choose at least three efforts to stop, writing them off publicly so you and your team can reclaim that energy. As you simplify, notice the relief in your meetings and the surge in real progress—you’ll wonder why you didn’t try this sooner.