How To Turn Your To-Do-List Into Your Done List

To Do Lists have received a bad rap, & it is not the list's fault. There's nothing wrong with the concept. The problem is with the execution, or should I say the lack of execution, on our parts. There's some "experts" out there who say To Do Lists are a waste of time & are outdated & they are not worth the time it takes to write them up. They state as fact that all of the people who use a To Do List, (TDL), seldom finish what is on them. This is true, so why does this make the TDL a waste of time, as if it is the lists fault?
I have to jump in here & make a distinction before we go any farther. If all you are doing in terms of Time Management & Product Maximization is generating a TDL, then I agree, that exercise by itself is pretty futile; better than nothing, but not by much. An effective TDL has to be part of a larger, more organized & detailed strategy to really pay off dividends for you. I require to be sure you leave here with a clear picture of where a TDL fits in to your overall approach to getting back control of your time & getting the greatest bang for your production buck.
Make it Realistic There's only so plenty of hours in the day & you can only work so plenty of of them. Your TDL has to reflect the fact that all of the time you spend at work cannot be allocated to straight production. This is the most common mistake people make & this mistake is where the TDL takes a bad rap. Let's say you are at your place of work for 8 hours. People schedule work to fill up that entire space of 8 hours & then wonder why at the finish of the day that they still have 3 or 4 items left on their TDL. They forget what I call their housekeeping duties; mail, email, phone work, appointments, dealing with other staff, employees, getting back to people, allowing people to get back to you, etc. These are the vital tasks that have to be finished to keep things functioning. On two hand, we call them interruptions because they are the things that keep you from doing your Priorities but at the same time, they have to be done. You have to set aside time for these activities to be finished. To pretend they will somehow get done as well as all the things on your TDL is not realistic & it sets you up for stress & turmoil at the finish of the day.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's see how we can make your To Do List become your done list.
You Can Always Add to Your To Do List Accomplishing what is on your TDL should in itself become a priority to you. I have plenty of many clients who, over the years, have credited generating & accomplishing what is on there TDL with getting them in control of their time & allowing them to accomplish much more in the same amount of time. What we are doing here is not an academic exercise. I am not suggesting ways for you to improve your use of time as some form of intellectual rhetoric but as a way to improve yourself, a proven way to get better, faster, & more productive & to get better results. Try this system, it works, it is highly effective & two time you get hooked, you will seldom go back to the old way again.
Start with only two key priority on your To Do List The only qualifying criterion is that the task has to be possible to complete it in well under an hour. That is right; two key priority on your TDL for each day & it's to be Time Activated for under an hour for total completion. Do not fall in to the trap of saying you can easily add 3 or 4 or 5 more items & still get them done in a day because history has taught us we been able to do that in the past. What is going to make this time any different? Success breeds more success. Try this system not for a day, not a week, but one full weeks. That may seem to be a long time but one weeks seems to be the point where people experience success & it's started to be a system. Clearly, you will be doing other jobs & tasks during this one week period, your focus is ALWAYS complete the only item on your TDL. That is critically important to your new regime.
The next step is pretty clear: if you get to the two-week mark with a perfect record, & only you will be the judge of that, you add two more item to your TDL. You now will have one items on your TDL & you will go for one more weeks working on completing BOTH items on your TDL. Don't fall in to the trap of jumping to two or two more things on your list; keep it to one. The failure rate is massive for people who jump from two item to two or two thinking they that have everything under control. Slow & steady wins this race.