How to Write a To Do List That Gets DONE
Here’s a hint: we’ve all been doing it wrong!
How many times have you written a To Do list only to be left with countless unticked boxes and an overwhelming sense of not getting enough done?
I used to think I was the master of To Do lists. All throughout my undergraduate and graduate education I also ran multiple full-time businesses, juggling endless tasks for work and school. I developed a pretty knock-out system for planning and achieving.
I even designed a college planner to help other students get a massive amount done in a shorter amount of time, preventing burnout and allowing for a greater social life.
But I still felt like my To Do’s outweighed the amount of time I had in a given day.
How frustrating is it to constantly feel behind? Like you’re not getting enough done or that you’re never going to hit your goals because you’re too scattered or too slow?
priority to do method
Once I figured out how to actually do a To Do list, I was able completely change my relationship to my work. I saw measurable progress each day on my task lists.
But what’s more, I felt completely in control of my goals, heading toward my latest “big win” with steady, confident steps.
My To Do lists were manageable, accelerated progress, and — most importantly — free from any fluff, “busy work,” or daunting, unessential tasks that dragged down my time and my motivation.
Ready to transform the way you write To Do lists for more control, freedom, and confidence?
Journal for clarity
Spend 15-20 minutes before work to get clear on your vision/goal and to think creatively of the steps you need to take to get there.
Braindump tasks
Here’s the mistake most people make: you simply write a To Do List, as if your first draft is perfectly planned and flawlessly thought-through.
But this makes your To Do list impossible to finish and lacks clear direction to your end goal. You end up wasting time on non-essential tasks and lose motivation and self-confidence along the way.
Braindump all of your tasks, then sort them into one of four buckets:
The Four-Bucket Method
All of your To Do’s can be sorted into one of four buckets:
Priority - High level tasks that will make-or-break your achievement (think of these as the 80 to the 80/20 rule).
To Do - Tasks you can finish in 20 mins or less that need to get taken care of but don’t contribute rapidly to your main goals.
Save for Later - Tasks that sound like a good idea, but aren’t necessary to complete in the immediate future.
Discard or Delegate - If you take stock of all your To Do’s, you can ask yourself, “if I could only complete 10 of these...which would I choose?” By ranking a task’s importance you can start to see where the “fluff” is and cut those tasks out — hard.
Create Timelines & Keep it Manageable
The best thing I can say is not that my “to do list is done,” but that every day feels manageable.
In reality, your To Do List will never be done, because you’re constantly working to grow. And that’s a good thing.
Being overwhelmed or feeling like you’re never going to get to the “finish line” is not.
I restrict myself to 1-2 priority tasks and 5 To Do’s, so that I know I can complete my work in a day with all the ups and downs and surprise twists each day brings (thank you, pandemic). Make sure you keep track of how much time you spend on a task, so you can get better at predicting how many tasks you can realistically get done in a day/week/month.
Hold Yourself Accountable with Reminders
Once you have your lovely tasks all sorted into their appropriate buckets and know when you’re going to work on them, you can add them to a reminder system. Juggling graduate classes and coursework, teaching two writing classes, and working for clients required I have a tight system for time management and accountability. Enter: Todoist.
Todoist is the best to do management system
Use Todoist to Upgrade Your To Do List
With everything laid out on paper, it’s time to transfer all the clear-headed, streamlined thoughts to a simple, easy digital to do list that can help you keep track of tasks, and automate your ToDos.
I use Todoist exclusively.
All the other task management systems are too complex and take too much time. But with Todoist I can just input my tasks, assign dates, and get reminders. Todoist is smarter than paper— it lets you keep tabs on your to dos from anywhere, and lets you organize and rearrange tasks as needed.
The clear, easy daily format prevents overwhelm and burnout. And, as is essential to my priority To Do method, allows you to flag tasks that are top priority.
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Managing a To Do List is a skill, one that requires patience and practice.
The only thing that separates those who are truly successful from those who aren’t is a strong ability to execute on the right tasks without succumbing to overwhelm, burnout, or mismanaged time and tasks. What kind of To Do List you create separates those who feel like “I can’t do enough” to those who know “I can get it all done.”
My question to you is, what kind of To Do List do you want to make?
Try Todoist and keep your to do list simple and your business moving forward.
