A distraction is any action that pulls us away from what we intend to do. The opposite of distraction is not “focus.” It

Ever notice how much easier it is to add things to your to-do list than to actually do them? With no constraints, we just fill up our lists with even more things we’ll never finish.

Countless productivity experts and creators of to-do list apps tell us that in order to get things done, we need to make a list of our tasks. Don’t get me wrong: Dumping everything you need to do out of your head and into a journal or app is good and necessary. What I’m about to argue against is the way many people use to-do lists to run their lives, as I did for decades.

What kind of identity does an ever-incomplete to-do list reinforce? Not a positive one. Having a constant reminder that we didn’t do what we said we’d do cements a self-stereotype. Eventually, we begrudgingly accept not following through. I’ll finish it tomorrow, we tell ourselves. What’s one more day? We repeat this cycle until the narrative begins to change from what we do to who we are.

But it wasn’t me that was “broken.” People are awful at predicting how long tasks will take them to complete — hence our habitual failure to finish what’s on our to-do lists. It’s the methodology that’s screwed up.

If this sounds familiar, I’m here to assure you that it’s not you — it’s the system. You’re basically running your life on Windows 95. Thankfully, there’s a better, more effective way to manage your tasks, but before we get into that, let’s discuss what’s wrong with to-do lists.

It is hard not to picture Scott in her car, eyes flicking at the rearview mirror, security guards ready to protect and to pounce, questioning interactions, avoiding public inquiries, thinking about how to give away a near oppressive amount of money to correct an unjust society that her wealth helped shape, about to leave her mansion and go pick up her kids as she tries to create for herself and them a thing money can’t buy: a normal life.

Back when I was letting to-do lists run my days, I’d blame myself for not finishing all the tasks I’d written down. I’d think there must be something wrong with me or with my inability to follow through. I didn’t realize this negative self-talk reinforced a kind of stereotype that made me less likely to accomplish my goals.

This happened to me: I allowed myself to believe I was the kind of person who was “easily distracted,” and I, therefore, became increasingly distractible. I started telling myself I was “bad at managing my time” and began acting accordingly.

There’s a scene in Scott’s novel Traps where a movie star, who’s become reclusive after her father sells her out to tabloids, thinks about the security apparatus it takes to make her life possible. The actress, trying to feel like a regular person, drives herself around, but this creates more work for the guards who have to protect her than just chauffeuring her would.

Have you ever met someone who manages their day using a to-do list and actually finishes everything they set out to do? Me neither. To-do list devotees keep an ongoing register of all the things they promise to get done, but at the end of each day, they’re surprised to find that their list of uncompleted tasks has gotten longer, not shorter. The next day, they repeat the Sisyphean practice. Their days, months, and sometimes entire careers are spent in a harried blur of feeling like they’re never doing enough.

As I described in my book, Indistractable, several studies have found that behavior change requires identity change. If you want to get in shape, you can’t give up one month after setting a New Year’s resolution. You must see yourself as an athlete, so you can commit to exercising for the rest of your life.

Say you bought a new phone, but at the end of each day, without fail, the operating system crashed. Would you keep using it? Of course not. You’d take the phone back to the store, complain, and get a new one.

She “is grateful every day for the protection they provide from the shadows her job has cast on her family — the predatory photographers, the stalkers, the few famous kidnappings of children of stars, but the truth is she does not go whole days or even whole hours at home without wondering what these kind people think of her,” Scott wrote. “Secretly she finds herself feeling insecure and self-conscious even in her own yard, where from behind a shuttered window she knows good people can see her. She has made her world so small trying to escape the judgments of strangers… She will not work to project what she wants others to see (Kind! Down-to-earth! Humble! Normal!).”

It is hard not to picture Scott in her car, eyes flicking at the rearview mirror, security guards ready to protect and to pounce, questioning interactions, avoiding public inquiries, thinking about how to give away a near oppressive amount of money to correct an unjust society that her wealth helped shape, about to leave her mansion and go pick up her kids as she tries to create for herself and them a thing money can’t buy: a normal life.

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ng road ahead, but our lessons create a road map for the future. As we face a rising Covid surge, we all have the opportunity to define what pivoting looks like in a post-pandemic era. We can get through this, and even change the world, if we take this challenge as an opportunity to shake the dust off, embrace change, and rise above limitations to find innovative solutions.