Stop task snowballing now: strategize your Todoist filters to get more done today

Addie Johnson
3 min readJan 9, 2024
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

I’ve noticed that when I get overwhelmed and stressed out, my sleep schedule gets all kinds of whacked out. Then, I try to get stuff done late at night to salvage the endless list of tasks remaining, but then even though I get everything done, I’m exhausted the next day and my sleep rhythm gets all messed up.

I stayed up late finishing tasks Sunday evening, but couldn’t finish everything (aka: task snowballing). Those tasks snowballed into my Monday/Tuesday, I couldn’t sleep well, and it messed up my routine! It’s time to reflect and change the pattern. Here’s what I’m doing to transform that feeling of overwhelm.

What’s the problem?

Too many tasks are showing up on my screen!

Having lots of tasks isn’t a bad thing: it’s important to be detailed in what you need to do so that your task are actually doable.

Where the problem exists is when you see all the tasks at once and your brain can’t figure out how to prioritize, delegate, and execute upon those tasks.

Here’s where filtering and dashboard curation come in.

Let’s get nitty gritty!

I’m going to be changing my home screen/Todoist dashboard to only show me 3–5 tasks at a time.

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Addie Johnson

writing about the intersection of design, business, and technology // addiejohnson.com