We often use lists to remind us what we need to do, grocery lists, shopping lists and to do lists. Creating a TASK TO DO list is a great way to stay organized and focus on the most important things we need to do as well as the most urgent things. Remember that something can be urgent without being important towards your accomplishment of your goals. To get the most out of a TASK TO DO list your need to list all the things you need or want to do and then prioritize them in terms of importance. For example, after you write out your TASK TO DO list go back through and code each item like this:
A – Most important towards accomplishing my goals.
B – Important towards goals and Urgent with a deadline.
C – Important to goals but not urgent.
D – Not important to goals but urgent.
E – Not important to goals and not urgent.
Now that you understand your list you can decide how you want to work on things. Working on A things first would be the most helpful in moving me towards accomplishing my goals, but the B items are also important and Urgent with a deadline, so you might first want to work on both the A and B items, knocking out the hardest to accomplish items first because it will get easier as the day goes on. Then work on C and D items and lastly the E items.
Some people try to do all the easy tasks first putting off the hardest tasks until later. I prefer to complete the harder tasks first that are the most important in moving me towards my goals because I will have more energy earlier in the day and by accomplishing an A task first I am ensuring a constant movement towards achieving my goals. Instead of wearing me down, it actually energizes me and helps me build momentum. Likewise, the B tasks are important and I am able to meet the deadlines by addressing them with some of my A list items.
How many times do you find yourself doing some task that captures your attention at the moment only to realize later that you just spent a lot of time doing something that does not move you towards your goals and was not urgent. This is called a negative work habit. Possibly, your goals do not reflect what you really would like to achieve or you have not organized your workday in a way that you have prioritized what is truly important to you. If you have no specific goals then it is even more difficult to organize a TASK TO DO list because you would have no way of evaluating what is important to you versus simply urgent or what is important might change from day-to-day with your moods.
Creating a TASK TO DO list can usually be done in just a few minutes and doing so gives your whole day direction, plus by having a list handy you can mark items off as you accomplish them, add more as needed and track how many things you are accomplishing. Saving your lists also provides you a short journal list of what you accomplished on a particular day in case you need to go back and find some piece of information about the task that was accomplished or to confirm it was actually accomplished. Likewise, your list can be used to carry over and plan the next day’s TO DO list so perhaps those Items listed under E – not important to goals and not urgent might be able to move up the list if you “want” to do that activity and it becomes more important for your goals such as enjoying life.
