How the 1-3-5 Rule Can help Your ToDo List and Focus
There’s a kind of relief that comes from ripping a chaotic to-do list down to something that actually fits into one day. The 1-3-5 rule does exactly that: pick one big thing, three medium things, and five small things and make that your entire day. It sounds almost smugly simple, but that’s the point structure that’s small enough to actually use.
You’re forced to choose what actually matters instead of hose pipeing effort at a list that will never stop growing. It doesn’t pretend to fix procrastination or energy dips it just makes the work you do intentional, visible, and often surprisingly satisfying.
i will let you know why it works, you get a big win, a little momentum, and some tidy wins that keep the day moving. Do that consistently and i say it to you as a friend you wake up without a list that makes you feel behind.
1-3-5 rule in different ways
Some treat the 1 like a deep-work session: code for two hours, finish a chapter, ship a feature. Others say do the 3 when you have medium attention windows (meetings, calls, editing). The 5 are the autopilot tasks you can knock out between meetings or when your brain wants something easy.
From what I have seen and tried, the most helpful habit is picking the list the night before or first thing in the morning it removes that decision fatigue mid-day. Also: be realistic. The rule isn’t a rigid contract; it’s a guardrail. If your day is meeting-heavy, scale it down to 1-2-3 or even 1-1-3 and call it fine.
| Task size | Example |
|---|---|
| Big | Draft the main section of the client proposal |
| Medium | Prepare slides for tomorrow’s meeting; respond to the two priority emails; update the project timeline |
| Small | File receipts; reply to quick Slack messages; make dinner plan; water plants; check calendar for tomorrow |
A couple of traps to avoid:
- Dont spend an hour deciding what’s big vs mid. I say trust your gut and pick something.
- +Dont force the five smalls if your day is already eaten by interruptions.
Three practical ways I use the rule:
- Put the 1 at the start of your highest-energy block. If you’re a night person, make it your evening deep work.
- Use time blocks or Pomodoro around the 1 so you actually get sustained focus.
- Keep a parking lot note for tasks that don’t fit today; dump them there and move on.
What people worry about
- Some complain the rule is too subjective: what’s big? what’s small? That’s fair. Two fixes that actually work: break big things into measurable steps, or spread one large project across several days where the 1 changes day to day but keeps moving forward. If you run out of medium or small tasks, that’s usually a good problem either you finished things or you’re being choosy, both wins.
Other people hit a different snag: they do all the 3s and 5s and ignore the 1. Been there. The only reliable antidote I found was habit-building around start-time: put the 1 in the calendar and treat it like an appointment. No optionality.
And i will tell you what, yes sir sometimes a day is just full of meetings, emergencies, and errands.
Thats when 1-3-5 rule becomes flexible frame to pare it back to 1-2-3 or just one meaningful objective.
What I learned
I started using 1-3-5 after months of endless lists that kept growing. At first it felt arbitrary why only nine items? but that limit helped me stop pretending I could do ten big things in a day. After a couple of weeks my days felt calmer; the metric I noticed wasn’t tasks completed per se, it was fewer evenings where I asked myself, what did I even do today? That alone was worth it.
candid admission: it didn’t cure my attention problems overnight. There were days I gamed the system and filled my small tasks with fluff so I could tick boxes. That taught me another little lesson: make your small tasks meaningful too.
If your job is reactive customer support, firefighting ops, being on call strict 1-3-5 may feel silly. But the concept still helps: force one meaningful action into the day even if the rest is chaos. Conversely, on bigstrategic days you might need a multi-day 1.
Final thought
Honestly the thing I like about 1-3-5 is how it kills the little soul-sucking decisions right?.
Pick the one thing that actually matters, pick a few that help it along, and finish with a handful of small wins so you don’t feel like you did nothing. Do that a few times a week and, weirdly, months later you’ll realise you’ve actually moved forward not in furious spurts, just in steady, quietly obvious ways.
From my desk to yours, Assem.