Your To-Do List is Gaslighting You (and Neuroscience Can Prove It)
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you’ve heard it:
“For the next 60–90 minutes, leave your to-do list at the door. All you need to do is breathe.”
Sounds simple. Except… have you met my brain? It hears that and immediately says, “Cool, but also—don’t forget to email Jenn, order more LaCroix for the office, and what if the roof leaks while you’re in downward dog?”
We say we want presence, but in reality? We’re junkies for the dopamine hit of being “busy.”
Why Letting Go is Basically a Horror Film
Your brain hates open tabs: Thanks to the Zeigarnik Effect, unfinished tasks hang around like a creepy ex who “just wanted to see how you’re doing.” To-do lists don’t help, they’re basically your brain’s gaslighter.
Multitasking: the scam of the century: Only 2.5% of people can actually do it well. The rest of us are playing cognitive whack-a-mole, wasting oxygen and glucose like it’s free candy.
Interruptions = productivity vampires: UC Irvine found it takes 23 minutes to refocus after one interruption. That means every “quick Slack/Teams ping” is stealing half your day and maybe your will to live.
Continuous Partial Attention: Neuroscientist Linda Stone nailed it: we’re half-present everywhere, fully present nowhere. So yeah, no wonder the whole “just breathe” thing feels impossible.
Enter Time-Blocking: Your Brain’s Babysitter
Time-blocking is like forcing your inner toddler into a playpen. Here’s the science:
Flow State Fuel: 90–120 minutes of uninterrupted time = prefrontal cortex party. Creativity spikes, time disappears, and you actually finish something instead of just starring it in Outlook.
Less Anxiety, More Chill: When tasks live on a calendar instead of in your mental haunted house, your brain calms down. HBR calls this timeboxing; I call it “therapy without the co-pay.”
Actual Leaders Do This: Trivago’s CEO blocks mornings before 11 a.m. for deep thinking. He admits it works 70% of the time. Which is still 70% more strategy than the rest of us scrolling LinkedIn before coffee.
How to Stop Being a To-Do List Victim
Block deep work first: Schedule 90 minutes for the one thing that actually matters. (Spoiler: it’s not inbox zero.)
Batch the shallow stuff: Emails, Slack/Teams, admin - dump it in a single block like digital compost.
Treat it like it’s sacred: If you wouldn’t ghost your CFO, don’t ghost your calendar.
Rewire, don’t rage-quit: Your brain will resist. That’s neuroscience, not personal failure. Keep blocking, keep breathing.
The Clingy Consulting Angle
Here’s the kicker: you can’t build “clingy customers” if your own teams can’t focus. If your culture worships the almighty to-do list but never protects real focus time, you’re burning money.
So let’s call it: your to-do list is lying to you. Time-blocking is the truth.
Next time someone tells you to “just breathe”?
Try blocking 90 minutes on your calendar.
Breathing optional. Results guaranteed.