

Ask yourself: What is the one thing that I can do today that will move my business, or myself, forward? 5. Some of the most successful people only have one thing on their to-do list. In fact, it’s advised not to have more than three things on your to-do list everyday. You might not believe this one but if you truly want to be successful, keep your to-do list very, very short. But that’s not the case - it’s most important to understand how effective you’ve been and that the work you did actually mattered. Keep in mind the mentality, “quality over quantity.” It’s easy to feel like you’ve accomplished many things when you’ve got a long list of items crossed off on your to-do list. It’s incredibly important to make sure you’re doing thorough and quality work. To-do lists are great ways to help us stay focused and motor through our work, but it’s not all about trying to pack millions of things in one day. Ask yourself questions like: What are the most important things I need to get done today? How long will each of these tasks realistically take me? What things can wait until tomorrow? By prioritizing and writing down the tasks that you need to get done that day and giving yourself enough time to efficiently complete them, you’ll be less stressed and feel more successful. Instead of jotting down everything that comes to mind, be specific and realistic when writing out your to-do lists. When someone asks you to help with something or take over a project, assess your own schedule and priorities and be realistic about whether or not you can take this on for them. In fact, when you’re constantly saying “yes” and adding more and more to your to-do list, you’ll eventually stretch yourself too thin and that can easily cause burnout. We all want to do favors for others but sometimes we’ve got to put ourselves first instead. To learn more, here are 10 quick tips to help you manage your time and create effective and actionable to-do lists. Instead, focus on fewer, more effective projects, prioritize the most important and stop saying “yes” to anything that comes your way. Fooding your to-do list with anything and everything that comes to mind is another big blag. One major red flag is not being realistic about what you can get done. The truth is, there’s a right way and a wrong way when it comes to to-do lists. Oftentimes that stress can lead to burnout. And when you have twenty things on your to-do list, there’s a constant stress to get through everything. And that will take you to achieve your ultimate goals.Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there are enough hours in a day to get everything done. If you break your goals into projects, your projects into tasks, and these-if they are too large-into micro-tasks, you will have a list of things you can check off. That way, you deceive your brain to not avoid the important tasks.
CHECK OFF LIST FULL
You will enter a steady flow of work, full of small rewards that push you to continue until the end. Check off each micro-task as you complete it and go adding at the end of the list the next micro-tasks that emerge. Simply, take a piece of paper and write down the next movements that your task at hand needs to get done. You don’t have to enter these micro-tasks in your organizational system (that wouldn’t be very productive). Micro-tasks are small movements of work, lasting on the order of several minutes, that lead you to complete the task. Want to be even more productive? Divide your tasks into micro-tasks. The solution, of course, is to break down these long and difficult tasks into many smaller, more manageable tasks, so that they can be tackled in the short-term. Although you know that you’re doing the most important thing at this time, your Next Actions list not only does not decrease but increases progressively as a result of new demands that require your attention.īut the truth is that most of the activities that add value to your life and your work are not minor or easy. The worst thing is that you will feel great, you will have the feeling that you’ve done a lot (which is true) and think you’ll have had a very productive day (which is not true).Įngaging in a long and complicated task can be very frustrating. If you don’t know how your brain works and don’t exert some control over it, this phenomenon will always take you to try to do the smaller and easier tasks on your to-do list. This release of dopamine not only makes you feel good but also motivates you to continue completing tasks and extend that pleasant feeling.īut this does not help you be more productive by itself. The reason is that whenever you recognize a task or project as completed, your brain releases a load of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is responsible for generating feelings of accomplishment, satisfaction and happiness.

Crossing out tasks or marking them as completed with a simple √ within a to-do list makes you feel great.
