Make a to-do list can help reduce the chaos in work and home life. Between your professional duties, house chores and social life, getting everything done can be a constant struggle. Completing your daily responsibilities might be a hard-fought battle that you lose every time. Then, the following day starts with too much to do and not enough time. The cycle continues. To do lists and checklists are great productivity tools that can help you to control your tasks and responsibilities.
To-do lists might not work for everyone, however, and you have to create an effective one. As a consequence, you should understand why you need to make a to-do list.
The Value of Making To-Do Lists
A good to-do list should help increase your productivity and give clearer focus on what things are most important and what you are trying to achieve.
A to-do list helps you prioritise. When you have a hundred tasks to handle, the knowledge of where to start is half the struggle. With a well-structured list, you can decide what comes first. Then, you can give each activity the attention it deserves. By prioritising your work, you can ensure that you don’t lose precious time on stuff that can wait a day or two.
To-do lists and checklists are excellent at directing your focus and help you stop forgetting or missing important tasks. Most people fail at being efficient due to divided attention. Trying to multi-task will leave you with partially-done activities and not much else. With a to-do list, you can tackle one item and move on to the next one. Being able to concentrate on only the task you have to accomplish improves your productivity.
To-do lists are not only helpful to individuals. They can increase the functioning of a team, especially when working on a project.
Make a To-Do List Tricks and Methods
How do you make a to-do list that works? One reason why to-do lists don’t work is that most people don’t know how to craft them correctly. You could end up with a list that’s too long, too short, too convoluted or too confusing, among other things. Then, the to-do list becomes a hindrance to your efficiency rather than a useful tool. So, how do you make a to-do list worth following? What prioritisation techniques and methods can you help you make your to-do list more productive.
Keep it Simple
The length of a checklist doesn’t reflect your productivity. Don’t try to do too much by loading your list with activities. A long to-do list can be intimidating, which is counterproductive because you might have trouble starting.
Accomplish MITs
A good to-do list contains MITs (most important tasks) the task you most want or need to get done in the day. Part of a productivity methodology called Zen to Done (ZTD) by Leo Babauta is where you focus on one task at a time, without distractions. Select a task (preferably a MIT) and focus on it exclusively.
Identify these critical tasks so you can tackle and focus your full attention.
Always aim to meet all your MITs. You can have two or three MITs, depending on how you intend to divide your time. These top activities should top the checklist and get your best attention.
Divide Your Work
Break down your work into bite-sized chunks. The presence of an activity that takes two weeks to complete on your list can be overwhelming. Such a task can be divided into small portions that are easy to complete. Have daily, weekly, monthly and yearly to-do lists.
Time Management
When you make a to-do list, remember to time your tasks. It ensures that you don’t spend more time than necessary on one item.
Priorities with Ivy Lee Method
6 tasks! At the end of the day, choose six tasks that you want to focus on tomorrow. Give them a priority order from 1-6. The next day starts work straight away on those tasks in priority order this saves you having to spend time identifying where to start and the feeling of being overwhelmed. Knowing where you need to start and what you need to focus on.
Think about 1-3-9
Select 13 tasks to focus on. Why 13 and which 13? The 1-3-9 Rule method is about identifying the priority of tasks and importance in your day.
1 – Highest Priority Task
3 – Medium Priority Tasks
9 – Lower Priority Tasks
Decide on one high-priority task that you will work on first, three medium-priority tasks to move onto, and then identify nine lower-priority tasks to complete once your high and medium tasks are finished.
Identify your Frog
Frog? What have frogs got to do with it? Eat your frog yuk is a metaphor for doing things that we don’t want to do. The frog is actually a task that you are putting off because it seems unpleasant or too difficult.
The idea of this method by Brian Tracy’s in his book “Eat That Frog” is simple, identify your frog or worst task and then get that task done straight away and as fast as possible.
Pick the Right To- Do List App
Listing pending tasks on sticky notes or a notebook work, but specialised to-do list software is better. A to-do app allows you to do a lot more than list tasks it gives you the power of task management.
To-do list app and checklist tools come with built-in reminders. You can time your items to improve time management and workflow. In instances where several people are working on the same list, users can update and share, which enhances collaboration.
Arranging tasks on a todo list app is less complicated than on paper. Firstly you can’t mislay or lose it but most importantly it’s with you 24/7 if you have your phone with you. Allowing you to add tasks from anywhere at any time. To-Do lists and checklists in the business allow everyone in the team to be able to identify who is doing what and where people are in the process.
Smart to-do list allows you the power to sort items by date, priority, who it is assigned to and other filters easily. This feature also makes it easy to search for specific activities, workspaces and key tags. Another plus side of to-do list software and checklist software is that it stores previous lists. If you have to confirm how a task was performed before s it went so well you can retrieve it and duplicate or create recurring checklists for everyone to follow. To enjoy all this, compare to-do apps carefully and pick one that matches your requirements.