We have a growing pile of weekly To-Dos on our Level 10 Meeting list that are three or four weeks old. They are not getting done, but the owners insist they are still important and refuse to drop them. This backlog is killing our momentum. How do we clean up these stale To-Dos without letting our team off the hook for their commitments?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A weekly To-Do list that is constantly cluttered with stale, incomplete tasks is a symptom of weak accountability. When a leader carries a To-Do for three or four weeks, it is usually because they did not actually commit to the task, the scope was too large, or they are prioritizing low-value work over their weekly commitments.

To clean up this backlog and restore momentum, you must implement a strict rule for stale To-Dos. Any task that is not completed after two consecutive weeks must be removed from the active list and dropped directly to the Issues List to be processed through IDS.

When you IDS a stale To-Do, the goal is not to shame the owner, but to solve the underlying bottleneck. The team must ask these three questions:
- Is this task actually important to our goals, or can we delete it entirely?
- Does the current owner have the capacity and capability to complete this task, or should it be reassigned?
- Is the scope of the task too large for a weekly To-Do, meaning it needs to be broken down into smaller milestones or turned into a Rock?

Do not allow these tasks to linger as permanent fixtures on your weekly agenda. By forcing stale To-Dos through the IDS process, you ensure that every item on your list is active, realistic, and driving the business forward.