Write tomorrow’s six most important tasks the evening before

Before the day ends, write exactly six tasks — no more — for the next day, ordered by their importance to you.

Why it works

Planning the next day’s work during the evening rather than the morning separates decision-making from execution. The previous day’s context is still available (you know what happened and what’s unresolved), motivation to plan is higher when closure is near, and the written list externalizes commitments so they don’t remain as intrusive thoughts overnight. The six-task limit forces prioritization before decision fatigue, not during it.

How to do it

1. At the end of each working day, take five minutes to write the six tasks that matter most for tomorrow.
2. Choose only tasks that are genuinely important, not just urgent — the list is a priorities list, not a catch-all.
3. Stop at six; anything beyond six goes on a backlog for a future day.

Evidence

End-of-day planning is associated with reduced next-day work rumination in organizational research. Externalization of plans reduces overnight intrusive thinking about unfinished work, consistent with the Zeigarnik effect and Masicampo & Baumeister’s planning-as-completion research. (observational)

The Masicampo & Baumeister finding supports planning-as-completion more broadly; the six-task limit specifically is a heuristic without a direct evidence base.

Sources

• Masicampo & Baumeister (2011), consider it done, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
• Crenshaw (2008), The Myth of Multitasking (practitioner synthesis; not primary research)

Common mistake

Writing more than six tasks and calling the list "prioritized" — at nine or ten items, the prioritization signal is lost and the list functions as a to-do pile, not a focused plan.