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To-Do Lists

The simple, but very powerful, To-Do List has been given something of a bad reputation by authors advocating their own elaborate time management methodologies. The To-Do List has been branded as simplistic and old fashioned. While advanced time management systems are great for CEO's and executives of major corporations (who have private secretaries to run these systems) the good old To-Do List is just fine for most of us. And it is certainly a huge improvement over using no system at all.

The method outlined here is a good way to get started with using a To-Do List, but remember that it will take some time and practice for you to make the best use of it. Also, each person is different and has slightly different requirements and working habits so feel free to adapt the method to what works best for you.

Why Use a To-Do List?

Keeping a To-Do List is a great way to overcome your day-to-day priority confusion. When you have lots of disjointed thoughts swirling around in your mind it is hard to know where to start, but when the tasks are put down on paper and can be compared against each other it is much easier to see where you should focus your energy first.

There is something enormously liberating about getting these tasks which are all competing for a share of your memory space written down on paper. Just knowing that it is recorded somewhere and that it is no longer your responsibility to hold it in your memory is a wonderful stress reliever and gives you a sense of control over your life.

And although it may indeed seem simplistic, it is extremely satisfying and motivating to be able to cross off each task from the To-Do List as it is completed. Sometimes you may feel that you have been working flat-out all day and accomplished nothing, but if you use a To-Do List you will see the number of completed tasks increasing as your day progresses. It can give a lot of satisfaction to be able to review your To-Do List at the end of the day and to know what you have actually got done.

Generating the To-Do List

A To-Do List is not a long list of every task that you know you need to do in the foreseeable future. The To-Do List is a short list of the tasks that you have committed to working on today. There should not be more than 10 items on your list, or you will not be able to rank their relative priorities, and the list will give you a feeling of being overwhelmed instead of the feeling of control that it is supposed to generate.

You should generate your To-Do List either at the end of the day (for the following day) or at the very start of your day. Try both, and see which works best for you. While you are planning your day and generating your To-Do List the tasks to be listed can come from a variety of sources. They may be things that came out of the plans that were generated by your goal setting, or they may be items that you have retrieved from your diary or calendar, or they may be simple requests from others (e.g. your boss!) to do certain things.

In addition to the daily To-Do List you should keep a longer term (approximately 1 or 2 weeks) list where you can "park" tasks or requests that need to be done soon, but not necessarily today. This list should also be reviewed as you are planning your day and items that are due for action can be transferred to the daily list.

You should not think of your To-Do List as a replacement for your daily diary or calendar. If you need to remember a meeting scheduled for 3 pm next Tuesday it should be in your diary and not on your To-Do List.

If you find that you have completed all your tasks before the end of the day, that is great. Take some time out to review these sources of tasks and build up a new list for the rest of the day.

Not everything can be planned in this organized way, but you should still use your To-Do List for the ad hoc tasks that arise during the day. If the boss walks in and says "Please proof read this report now" you have no choice but to do it, but you should still add it to your To-Do List and cross it out when it is completed. If you do it this way you will not be wondering at the end of the day why you got so few of your scheduled tasks completed.

Format of your To-Do List

There are many software programs that you can use to create your To-Do List, but it is very easy and maybe even more efficient to use a piece of paper. I find that letter or A4 size paper cut into quarters gives a very handy size that is close to 4" x 6" (10 cm x 15 cm). I clip a few of these together and have them right at my elbow where I can see the list constantly while I am working. Somehow it is more satisfying drawing a fat black line through a completed task on a piece of paper than it is to insert a clinical little check mark on a computer screen.

Phrasing the Task Descriptions

This is not something to get too hung up about. The way you describe the tasks is up to you - do what works for you. In general you will find that it is better to have them short, specific and action oriented. You know what needs to be done and the To-Do List is just a reminder, so it is not necessary to write very detailed descriptions.

One thing to watch out for is those tasks that get stuck on the To-Do List and get carried over from day to day. If you find one of these that has been there for a few days look carefully at whether it actually needs to be broken down into more specific separate tasks. Another possibility is that it has got stuck there because you actually need to do something else before you can tackle this task.

Prioritizing the List

One of the reasons to keep the To-Do List short is that it makes it easy and obvious which items take priority. Some tasks have obvious priority. If a task is worded "Send contract list to boss by 9am" then that pretty much defines its priority. Where the order that you do things is up to your own discretion, a useful method is to allocate a few quick and easy tasks at the start of your day to build up some momentum. Follow these with the unpleasant tasks so that they are out of the way and won't cause you stress every time you look at the list. In order to keep up your energy and motivation while you are working through your list you should use the time management technique of structured periods of work and rest.

One valid criticism of To-Do Lists is that they can become solely a tool for prioritizing your schedule. It is important to turn this around and also schedule your priorities. This means that those important, but not urgent, tasks that you have identified as part of your plan in working towards a goal must be placed on the To-Do List as well. A technique that works well with this type of task is to use time boxing and set aside a specific block of time during your day to work on an important long term project. If you have all the urgent stuff under control by using the To-Do List then you can plan for the important things as well.