Long live the to-do list!
Even people who are good at making lists of their tasks get overwhelmed. Despite having up-to-date lists, they find it impossible to prioritize, delegate, or know when to say, “no.”
Yes, to-do lists are great for holding all our tasks in one place. Yes, they give us a sense of being at least a little more in control. But they can’t tell us which, of the hundreds of tasks on our list, we should do now.
That’s because our standard to-do list is flat, meaningless, just a list.
We need a to-do list system that would capture why each task is important to us. It would remind us which tasks are part of larger projects. It would help us group similar tasks (e.g. “Show me all the calls I could make right now.”) so we can be efficient. It would tell us what tasks we have promised to someone else by a certain time and date. And this system would track reference material and the tasks we don’t need to do now but may someday do.
With a system like this at our fingertips, we have all we need to prioritize, focus on what’s most important, and step away from overwhelm.
In your corner,
Mike
PS: Learn more about this system of lists, the habits you can build to run this system, the quick start option, and the barebone edition.
Today’s photo credit: koalazymonkey via photopin cc