9 Sure-Fire Ways to Tackle Your To-Do Lists Every Day

Time and time again, I have written about the power of to-do lists and why you should make them. To-do lists can help us in more ways than one. Having a list gives you a direction for your day, and you are not running around with no tact. It shows you what tasks are a priority, and what needs to be done when. It highlights the time required for each task, and how you should plan your day.

You start your day with a positive attitude, ready to conquer the world. But most days you have a lot of important things to attend to, that it becomes impossible to prioritize. On days like these, we don’t get most of the things on our lists done, because we are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks.

Writing down what you need to achieve can help you have a clear vision towards it. Some people make the mistake of writing too many things on their to-do lists, and that just makes them panicky because it is not possible to complete that many tasks in a day. If something that is meant to help you, ends up making you anxious, then that is surely not good.

If you follow proper protocols… that sounds too technical, doesn’t it? Well, let’s put it this way. If you just keep a few things in mind while making your to-do list, then you will see the kind of positive effect it has on your day, and your ability to do all your work efficiently.

1. Prepare your to-do lists the night before

At the end of the day, you know what you have completed, and what needs your attention next. It is the best time to create a game plan for the next day. It’s like getting a head start. When you make a list at night, you already know what you need to focus on first the next day, what work you can fit in, considering your schedule.

If you wake up early, then you can use that time as well, but before going to bed is a good time to strategize. You don’t have to wake up to the task of planning then. Putting indicators to tasks that are priorities, urgent, or can be put-off, is something that will help you go about your day as soon as you wake up. If you are not an early riser, then making a list in advance will let you know at what time to wake up to keep your day running smoothly.

For me, I make a list of my three MITs (Most Important Tasks). It is advised to make a list of 2-3 MITs and try to achieve them as soon as possible, they are critical tasks that yield the most significant results.

2. Don’t make your lists overwhelming

I understand the urge to fill up our lists with all the tasks that are swarming our minds, but I would discourage you from doing so. It’s not the lists that overwhelm us, it’s what and how much we put on it. Ever heard about not overfilling your plate, this is exactly that.

What I suggest is, writing down everything that’s on your mind. It could be a month’s worth of work, or work that could be completed in a day; just do a brain dump on a paper or your to-do app of choice. I use Things 3 on my Mac, iPad and, iPhone. It’s one of the best to-do apps I have ever used and syncs my tasks across all devices.

Check out my review of Things 3.

After doing that, take things out from it to do each day, and do not look at the main list you made again while going about your day. This will free up your mind from the plethora of tasks that need to be done and will let you focus on what you can do now. There’s no point stressing over the bulk and doing nothing to make a dent in it.

3. Tackle the biggest mountain first

It can be tempting to complete the smaller tasks, and it feels good to strike off things on your list. But, in a way, it is your way of putting off the difficult task. Once you have completed all the easy tasks and only the tough one remains, you start feeling down. The high of striking off things from the list is gone. You feel like you have accomplished enough, completed almost all the tasks on your list, and as a result, you slow down.

Most of the times, the tough things are the important ones. Instead of putting them off, you need to tackle them first. Climb the biggest mountain first, then the others are a walk in the park.

4. Combine easy and difficult tasks

Just because it is a good idea to complete the tough task first, doesn’t mean your list should be full of them. Make a to-do list in such a way that it leaves you some breathing space. Do not fill your days with all the difficult tasks that you can think of, it will become real hectic real soon, and you don’t want that.

Sprinkle easy, if possible fun, tasks in your list and also shorter tasks that can be completed in 5-10 minutes tops This makes sure that you don’t fry your brain trying to do the impossible. It is not possible to do a week’s worth of work in a day. While getting all the big projects out of the way can feel like a good idea, but it is, in fact, a bad one.

5. Prioritize your tasks

It is really important to know what tasks need to be done when. You can use any indicators that make the most sense to you. I divide them into high-priority, priority, low-priority. You can also call them must-do, should-do, would-like-to-do. Give them a number, or assign a letter.

Suppose,

A is high-priority,

B is priority,

C is low-priority,

then write down the letters next to the tasks; now you know which ones to do first. This also helps isolate the tasks to further organize your tasks in a workable fashion.

One thing to keep in mind is to not add more than 2-3 tasks in the high-priority section. Because there is only so much stress we can handle in a day, if you add most of your tasks in that section then you are most probably setting yourself up for failure.

6. Assign blocks of time to tasks

Knowing how much time you require to complete a task can come in handy when making a list. You should assign blocks of your day to a specific kind of task. Suppose you reply to emails faster in the afternoon and prepare reports in lesser time in the morning, then that is how you should plan your day.

Utilizing your strengths and dividing your day also gives you a chance to not focus on your entire list at once. You can forget the rest, and just focus on the task at hand, because you know that the other tasks have time allocated specifically for them.

Parkinson’s law states, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Setting too much time for a task, or too little time can be a cause for failure in completing your list. Allocating more time than needed will make you do your work at a leisurely pace, not leaving enough time for other tasks. Setting less time will make your rush, which can then compromise the quality of your work.

7. Eliminate distractions

FOMO or “Fear of missing out” is one of the things that has been a widespread problem that has come with the excessive use of social media. Nobody wants to miss anything, the result of which is constant pings on your mobile phone.

When you work, it is important to eliminate any kind of distraction that you might face. Distractions take you much longer to do a task, and the constant diversion of attention doesn’t help either.

Close unnecessary tabs, make it a rule to not use your phone in the block that you are working in, I am not telling you to abandon your phone for the whole day, but if you follow any sort of timeboxing then it is easier to put down your phone for a short period of time. Avoid working with the TV on in the background, do not work with constant flowing conversation, and focus only on the work at hand.

For me, I keep my phone in another room while doing my Pomodoros and only check it during the breaks. You can also use apps like Brain.fm and Noizio to focus better. They basically play ambient sounds that help you concentrate and focus better.

8. Insert various breaks throughout your work day

Many people think taking breaks is a waste of time, when time and again it has been proven that taking breaks is actually beneficial and helps you get more work done than if you would have worked continuously.

For time management, many organizations use timeboxing (mainly used for software development) for project management as well as personal time management. How it works is, you divide your schedules into a number of set time periods. Each allocated fixed period has its own attributes: plans, deliverables, deadlines, etc. A more workable form for everyone based on this principle is the Pomodoro technique.

Pomodoro technique is one of the most used techniques. It is a time management technique that uses a timer to break down your work into intervals of 25 minutes each and these blocks are punctuated with 5-minute breaks. This technique is so widely used that you will get a ton of apps and websites with a timer to help you with it.

9. Start fresh every day

There will be days when you won’t complete all the tasks on your list. I would suggest throwing away that list and start a new one every day. When you just add on to the existing list, the next day when you start, you start with a feeling of not having completed the tasks the day before. “If only” can plague your mind: if only I had done the work yesterday, if only I worked faster, and so on. This is not a healthy attitude to begin your day with.

Toss the list and start a new one with the remaining tasks and new tasks, it makes you feel like you have a new set of tasks. Whatever makes you feel positive about your workflow is what you are going to apply.

I have always considered making a good plan to be half-battle won. To-do lists are your daily plans. If you prepare them smartly, and then apply them to the T, you will realize that getting work done is easier than it always seemed.

You have to always consider your strengths, your weaknesses, your schedule, the probability of last-minute tasks, the average time to get a job done, any kind of raw data that can help you get into the habit of making an almost foolproof plan. Follow these steps, and you will get into the habit of making a to-do list that works for you, and then as you go on, you can keep tweaking it to suit your needs.