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To-Do List, Or Not To-do List?
Have you tried a to-do list and it hasn’t worked? Do you occasionally
forget a task? Do you spend too much time on low-priority tasks, versus important tasks? Have you been surprised by an approaching deadline? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may need to create, use, or improve a daily to-do list. Whether you use a legal pad, Outlook, or Google — it’s not important; what is important is to use a to-do list daily. It can be a powerful tool that reduces stress and uses time more efficiently.
How To Create A Daily To-do List
• List your daily activities.
• Grade the activities by importance from A — can’t wait, to F — not sure if it requires my attention. Demote A’s and re-prioritize if there are too many.
• Plan more than you think you can accomplish. Parkinson’s Law states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Keep in mind, uncompleted low-priority tasks may be moved to the next day.
• Divide large tasks into more manageable components.
• Use the gumption factor — schedule the least attractive and most important task first.
• Consider chronos time (the amount of time needed to complete the activity)and kairos time (the best time to schedule the activity).
• Plan start and stop times for each activity.
• Delegate appropriate activities.
Tips For Better Prioritization
Recurring activities may be scheduled at consistent daily and/or weekly times. A consistent routine will reduce the time and energy spent scheduling. If you are part of a team, consistently scheduling routine activities informs everyone. Make a plan every day. Some people enjoy arriving at work 10 – 15 minutes early to organize their work area and create a daily plan. Others prefer the end of the day. It does not matter. What matters is taking a few minutes to plan the day.
When Listing Daily Activities, Consider The Following
• Pre-scheduled routine activities
• Ongoing projects
• New projects
• Assignments
• Follow-ups
• Planning time
The objective is not to plan every activity – it is to schedule activities.
I’ve Tried All This Stuff and It Didn’t Work!
• K-I-S-S — Keep It Simple, stupid!
• List a few priorities, and don’t increase the list until you begin accomplishing those daily.
• Start a, “I’m keeping track of this” list for continuing projects.
• Remove items (or move to a tracking list) that do not progress.
• Make a weekly list and a separate daily to-do list.
• Create a to-don’t list. Eliminate unimportant tasks, and delegate tasks better suited to others.
• Say no. Do not commit to unimportant tasks.
So what if your supervisors keep giving you more than you can accomplish? Show them your workload, your to-do list, and politely ask, “Which tasks should take priority and which should I put off?”
Some Tools We’ve Tried
The following are tools @joshhumble and I have reviewed. Doit.im is easy to use, and it has a drop-down for notes, priority ranking L–M-H, e-mail reminders — and my favorite – today, tomorrow, waiting for, and someday lists. Josh recommended both Doit and Doomi, and he added the following about Doomi: “It’s really fast on start-up.” Tada is accessible, but not very detailed.
In Conclusion
I’m interested in your experiences with to-do lists. Do you currently use a to-do list, and why or why not? What has worked for you? What did not work? Do you think I’m full of crap? Let me know.
How To Limit Procrastination
Are you putting off more and accomplishing less? Have you tried time management tools, like daily planners, but feel like you’re getting nowhere? (Does this sound like a commercial?) Do you want to understand why you procrastinate? Okay, start with the two minutes it will take to read this post. Do not do it later! Do not touch that dial. This post is designed to help you understand procrastination, offer a few strategies, and link to more resources.
Make decisions
Indecision leads to procrastination. Everyone has the fear of making bad choices; however, you must not let fear stop you from making a decision. Gather information, ask for input, and make a decision.
You are not perfect
You should not be expected to be right all the time (except for air traffic controllers when I’m on the plane, and my doctor!). What should be expected is a thought process, or the reasoning behind the decision. Do you suffer from perfection paralysis? If you cannot do it perfectly – you don’t do it at all! Stop! No one is starting a religion after any of us, so sometimes you will be wrong!
Have the courage to learn from your mistakes
If you had a plan that did not succeed, analyze the plan and learn from your mistakes. Okay, really… nobody wants to make decisions, because nobody wants to be wrong. You are not alone. Everyone is afraid of making a poor decision. Do your homework first, and make the best decision you can, based on the information available, because making no decision is a decision, and probably a poor one.
The Gumption Factor
We all put off tasks that are not as enjoyable as others. The gumption factor is defined as beginning and completing the least attractive, most demanding task. Try it — the feeling of accomplishment is wonderful. Procrastination can be the byproduct of a lack of prioritization. How are you prioritizing tasks? What type of tasks take priority? Are they important tasks, urgent tasks, or tasks you enjoy? What tasks and activities have been postponed? Do the tough stuff first!
Understand the stress you create
The stress of procrastination interferes with production, and it becomes a time waster — especially when it is caused by indecision, and the indecision process is recycled. This is stress amplified!
Procrastination is seldom a time management problem. It is a thought process problem that affects time management. To improve procrastination, the decision making process must be improved. Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago states, “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up!”
Want to learn more?
The first two chapters of “Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It,” written by Jane B. Burka, PhD and Lenora M. Yuen, PhD., are available at no cost.
We are starting a procrastinators club as soon as we can find the time — gettoitlater.com will be coming soon.
In the next post, I’ll outline time wasters such as a lacking of organization, poor planning, and ineffective meetings. Was it poor planning not to discuss planning first? But seriously, what strategies have you used to limit procrastination? What sites have you found useful?
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Time Management
Time management is crucial to getting more
value out of your projects and improving the quality of your life. To improve your use of time, you must be brutally honest in analyzing your time usage. Let’s look at the following time waster:
Interruptions
Interruptions at any time — especially during the “golden hours,” before deadlines are met — should be limited. Determine your most important times of the day, when interruptions are frowned upon, and then consider the following:
Smalltalk and chitchats can be quickly and politely ended by explaining, “That sounds interesting, could we talk later? I’m in the middle of…”
Work-related questions and requests during critical times should be limited by asking yourself these questions:
o Does this require my guidance?
o Can another team member handle this?
o Do I need to do this now, and if not, when is the best time to accomplish this?
Establish a time and system to take messages from team members, vendors, and clients so as not to be interrupted during your golden hours.
Do not waste others’ time. Are you the initiator of the interruptions? It is important to enjoy yourself at work, but let’s focus on accomplishing work tasks, not delaying them. You must pick your times carefully.
Many team leaders find they spend too much time seeking solutions to a problem, when someone else on the team is better suited for the task. Interruptions take time away from planned projects, and diverting oneself from the project, takes more time to refocus. This often leads to mistakes, which adds time to the project in redoing the work. It’s like reading the same sentence again after an interruption. It’s like reading the same sentence again after an interruption. In addition, interrupting a project to assist with something that should be scheduled at later time, slows the process, and is a time waster.
Consider this: take the number of interruptions, multiplied by the time lost per interruption, for the total time wasted. For example, if you have five team members on a project, times a 12-minute interruption per member, you’ve lost a whole hour!
I’ve divided the time wasters segment into two more posts, with procrastination being next, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to it!
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