Make a list. Add times and required energy to each task.
Separate the items you intend to do on your to do list from the ones you’d like to do one of these days. For example, maybe you need a new roof, and you’d like to get that taken care of, but if you have no intention of doing anything about it this year. Put it in a different section on the to-do list.
New Idea 8/6/22: A Success List with step-by-step items for any side projects you have. That way, you always know the next step, and that’s what gets moved to your to-do list.
If you create a to do list and really rack your brain to come up with everything you need to do, and even if you break that list down into various steps (for example, clean house isn’t one item but several, like vacuum, clean the bathroom, dust, etc.), you probably don’t have more than 100 items on the list. And a bunch of those items can probably be done in just a few minutes. Remember, put time estimates next to the items on your list, then knock a few of the short ones out. Try the two-minute drill.
It’s not all about time, it’s also about energy. So when you put the time estimates next to each to-do item, put energy estimates next to them too. That’ll help you quickly identify tasks you can accomplish when you’re short on time and short on energy.
I find that the Tasks feature on Outlook works pretty well for this. Why? Because it’s incorporated into the email client that millions of American already use. It allows you to create one big master to do list, pull some of those items into a different “long term” folder that you can review regularly, flag your top priorities (actually, star them), and pull the ones you plan to do today into the “today” view. Plus you can download the app and view/modify the list on your phone. Outlook incorporated ToDoist (is this true?) into their to do tool and so they have some of the best features from the old to do app that millions of people relied on.
But this won’t be for everyone, and you may find that a different app or even a spiral notebook works best for you. I actually started using Excel while writing this book, and it’s worked well for me. The most important thing is to make sure that you capture all of your to do items and that you stay consistent – every time something new comes up, add it to the list. If you don’t, it will feel incomplete, and you’ll either stop using it or feel that you need another way to track your to do items, like the absolute worst method – memory.
- How many things do you have to do? Do you have any idea? Without a comprehensive list, the answer is probably no – why would you know? You might have a general sense, but chances are your guess would be pretty far off. For those of us just sitting around bored, we would probably underestimate how many things we could be working on. Those of us who feel so overwhelmed we don’t know where to start might overestimate how many tasks we need to complete if we were to guess at the number. The truth is that everyone has stuff that they could and probably should be doing. But it’s also a finite list. When someone says they have a million things to do, they probably actually have a hundred or less. The trick is capturing all of those items on a single list, then being honest about which ones we’re actually likely to do and which ones are really “someday” items that we’re unlikely to get to in the next year. If we separate the long-term items and put them on a different list, the remaining list, while long, is probably not quite as overwhelming. But the question remains, where do we start? Before figuring that out, we need to add a time and energy estimate to our list. It’ll only take a few minutes, but it will be helpful in choosing items to do when we have small windows of time or don’t have a lot of motivation.
- Time yourself. That will help you get better at estimating how long projects will take. And if you have a physical item that needs something done with it, you can put a sticky note on it that says how much time that particular project will take. Always allow for interruptions and overestimate rather than underestimate meaning time. Principle that says things take longer than you expect, even when accounting for that principle.
- Ultimately, the number one way to keep your to-do list short is to make sure certain tasks never end up there.
- I’ve tried all sorts of ways to capture and keep up with my to do items. Sticky notes (which have a purpose but aren’t great for to-do’s unless you’re sitting at you’re computer or actually sticking them to the thing you need to work on), note cards, paper lists, excel lists, electronic to-do lists, etc. At one point, I even bought a box of blank business cards and used those for one to-do item each. None of these ideass works perfectly, but each of them can work well as long as the list is current and complete.
- Should you archive your to do items so you can go back and look at them? This is the sort of thing that hoarders do. Yes, there can be a value in having the records, but, let’s be honest, how often will you actually look back at that list? As an old boss of mine would ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?
- Here’s a way you can make it worth the squeeze: Add done list explanation here
- I know I said that everything should go on your to-do list, but let me amend that a little. There are, obviously, specialized lists, like shopping lists. So “go to the grocery store” might be on your to do list, but you have a separate shopping list to use when you go there. And you may even use a different tool for that list, like Alexa’s shopping list.
- Idea: have a spot on your to-do list for the very next step in each multi-step project. That way, steps you can’t get to yet, until other things are done, don’t clutter up the list, but you don’t forget about the project and you’ve always got something you could do to advance it on your list.
- Should you have a physical or electronic to do list? I sort of go back and forth between the two. What I would suggest is having whichever one you prefer but then have the other as a backup.
- Nothing would ever change without our being able to suspend reality, to imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist. That ability is one of the things that sets humans apart from other animals. The ability to dream, and then to turn those dreams into goals and turn goals into a plan and turn that plan into steps and turn those steps into to-do items, some of which you then put on your calendar to do at a specific, scheduled time.
- Set goals, but also set stretch goals.
When compiling your to do list, ask yourself: do any of the items have multiple steps? If so, put each task on your list. Examine the important areas of your life to uncover more tasks that need to be completed: your house, your car, church, work, yard, etc. Think not only of short-term tasks, but medium- and long-term as well. For example, you might need to wash the dishes. That’s a short-term task. Maybe you need to get the A/C serviced before it starts getting hot. That’s a medium-term task. Maybe you’d like to replace the deck “one of these days.” That’s a long-term task. Put them all on the list – you can prioritize later.
If the task will require an investment, add that to the to-do item as well. The cost may factor into how you prioritize your tasks.