Check Your To-Do List
Check Your To-Do List. If your to-do list is overwhelming or ineffective let’s check it. If you feel as though you never cross anything off your list, here are three strategies that may help you turn your to-do list into “done”.
- Make sure you only put tasks on your list that will take less than an hour. If it will take longer, break it down into several steps. Accomplishing one step at a time will get you to the same final goal.
- Take emotion off the list. If there is a task that has been lingering on your list because you are agonizing over it, just DO IT. Tackle a hated task first thing in the morning and get it over with. Accomplishing your least favorite chore first will make the rest of the day flow.
- Be clear on how long something will take you and schedule a time to do it. If you don’t make time to do each task, it simply won’t get done. Scheduling will help you to be realistic about how much you can accomplish on any given day.
3 strategies that may help you turn your to-do list into done! Share on X
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Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Love these simple, doable tips to energize the stickiest of “to do” lists. Thanks so much, Janet for sharing.
Thanks Linda. Happy Monday!
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I like your suggestion about not listing tasks that will take more than an hour, but sometimes I overestimate how long something will take, so that could backfire!
These are simple but effective suggestions! I love that you mentioned just doing the tasks that are lingering. I was working with a client and found that she had larger jobs on her list. As I reviewed how she wrote up her list, I discovered that she was indicating to herself that more steps needed to be done for a particular task. So I told her when she is writing her jobs, leave enough space for the steps with more than one step to them. I used an example of a mind map layout – draw arrows to the other tasks near the main task project. This will indicate to her that the job isn’t short and will need to allocate a little more time.