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.
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