The To Do List!
To accomplish anything meaningful or sizable, you need a to do list…. This one simple chore can ensure you stay on your task, provide you with feedback on how far you have come and help prioritize seemingly competing tasks…
I am not talking of a project plan that spans days, weeks or months, involving many resources here… a simple list of things you need to accomplish on that day!!!
The to do list has to be right sized. I have seen many people write an entire project as a task on their lists and carry it forward day after day, week after week with no progress what so ever except built up pressure/ stress at an ever increasing list!
To have a to do list that actually works for you, consider the following:
– the list of things you want to accomplish on a given day
– a short description of what you want to achieve where it makes sense will go a long way
– the effort estimate… how long will this task take? The simple rule that I have always followed is, anything less than 30 minutes is too small to make it to my list; anything over 4 hours long is to be broken into multiple tasks
– dependencies if any… need someone else involved, can only be done after such and such, etc
You will quickly be able to tell whether the tasks you are planning for a day can even be accomplished or if you need to push some of them to the following day….
I recommend that you review your task list each night as you go to bed and create the list for the following day… it actually could help you sleep better given the clarity it will give you for how to go about your tomorrow!
As fundamental as this may seem, you will be surprised at how few a number of people actually have a written to do list like the one that I have suggested!
Add creating your to do list to your to do list from today!
