When Your To-Do List Starts Running Your Business (and Your Nervous System)

Ever notice how the to-do list that was supposed to help you ends up running your entire life?

I did. For 30 years.

And I grew to hate it.
The endless tasks. The constant “what’s next.” The low-grade hum of “I’m forgetting something” that never quite went away—even on weekends.

It started feeling less like structure and more like reinventing the corporate hamster wheel I thought I had left behind.

The trigger

Years ago, at the first World Domination Summit in Portland, I heard a successful early-era digital entrepreneur say,

“I don’t work off to-do lists anymore.”

That stuck with me.
I remember thinking, Huh… interesting. I wonder how he does that.

And then I filed it away in the back of my mind, because I still had a corporate job and a system that worked (or at least, worked on me).

The relapse

Fast-forward to the start of my business.
I went right back to my trusty to-do lists—and immediately recreated the same dynamic I was trying to escape.

These patterns take time to rewire.
I felt angry at myself, at my business, at all the things I had to do.
Some days I shut down and made no progress; some weeks I worked ridiculous hours until I was fried.

I was living in panic and fear.
I started dreading working on my business.
My creative self was elusive.

The irony?
When I used to go on vacation, I refused to plan my days.
Either my partner handled the planning, or we just went with the flow—and it almost always worked out fine.

It was my unconscious mind’s quiet protest against living by a to-do list.
A part of me already knew what my conscious mind hadn’t caught up to yet:
structure without rest turns into a cage.

There had to be a better way.

The shift

The first thing I changed was simple:
I started setting weekly intentions instead of daily lists.

Every Monday, I’d name three things—okay, five things because I’m an overachiever—that I’d feel good about accomplishing by the end of the week.

That tiny shift anchored me in what I wanted, not what I had to do.

The impact

It didn’t happen overnight.
But within a few weeks, the constant panic started to ease.
I noticed more progress—and the kind of progress I actually felt proud of.

I woke up feeling eager to work on my business again.
Let’s just say my eagerness-to-dread quotient finally moved into whole numbers, not fractions. 😉

The takeaway

I actually anticipate the resistance when I suggest this to business creators—because I know it’s a radically different way of working.

It’s not a switch you flip—it’s a process.
More like swapping espresso machines.
You don’t just plug in the new one and expect perfect espresso on day one.
You tinker, spill, adjust. You learn what works for you.

And that’s really the heart of entrepreneurship: experimentation.
There’s no single right way—only the way that works for you and your nervous system.

I see this all the time in conversations with entrepreneurs, business creators, and founders. When you start working with your nervous system instead of against it, your creativity comes back online. You feel pulled toward your work, not driven by it.

The same goes for learning to work from want to instead of have to.
You’ll make mistakes. You’ll course-correct. And you’ll learn a lot about yourself along the way.

The next experiment

Working by intention is just the start. Another common challenge is knowing how to complete your day. I hear this from founders and entrepreneurs all the time—working 12 to 16 hour days, unsure how to stop. Honestly, I’m still working through this myself, but I’ll share some thoughts next week. Today’s experiment is the foundation.

I’m curious: when you imagine letting go of your to-do list, what’s the first thought that comes up?
Email me at pierre at pierrebradette dot com—I’ll send back one reframe to help you look at it differently.

To your success,

Pierre

Certified Professional Coach | www.pierrebradette.com

Photo by Hugo Rocha on Unsplash