No. 66 - To-Do Lists

We can't emphasize enough how important TO-DO LISTS are.

Some people make them at the end of a day – listing what they need to get done tomorrow. Some say they do this because their list percolates in their subconscious while they sleep. Others make them first thing in the morning.

There are four reasons why TO-DO LISTS are so important:

1. Your mind can never remember all that you need to get done within a given period. Your list is a way to make sure you don't miss something important.

2. Making a list helps you prioritize. Some people construct their list with the most important items at the top, or in capitals, or in red.... Just create a system that works for you to identify what you need to do first.

3. Creating a list reduces stress. You become anxious if you feel out of control - that you can never accomplish all your necessary tasks. When you take the time to make a list, you regain a little bit of control.

Some people assign times to their lists – they indicate when they are going to do what or how long an item should take. They still have a lot to do in a limited time – but now they have a better sense of how to do it.

4. TO-DO LISTS are all about choices. Force yourself to decide what has to get done every day and rank your priorities, and you must make choices (a good thing). You remind yourself of your goals and visions. Making lists can even be fun – in a way you construct a little mini-novel about how your life will play out.

"Every effective executive works from a daily list. It is the most powerful tool ever discovered for maximum productivity.

[You] will increase your efficiency by 25 percent the very first day that you start using a list. This means that you will get two extra hours of prodctive time in an eight-hour day.... You can bring order out of chaos faster with a list than with any other time management tool." - Brian Tracy, Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done

Read more about time management, or check out the work-in-progress book 'Street Smarts 101: Lessons Textbooks Miss.'

Click here to learn more about the book The Skinny On Time Management.

Comments

[somanabolic]

Ive developed a very usable little ToDo lists plugin for Redmine, sort of inspired by Basecamp. It allows you to create nestable per-project todo lists