We know how it is, you wake in the morning – the smell of promise in the air – feeling as though today is the day you're going to get everything done.
The problem is though, most of us don't. We load our lists with so many tasks that not only can we not get through them all, we then also feel guilty about it.
The list nags at us through the day – and instead of feeling motivated and productive, we often feel the opposite: inadequate.
But the issue is not our lists, the issue is our attitude towards them, as time-management and productivity coach, Clare Evans argues.
In an article for The Guardian, she suggests setting a maximum of 10 tasks a day:
"Realistically, how much can you fit in? It might be five or six things, or only one. Identify the most important thing you need to do today and how long each task is going to take. Allocate time in the day when you’re going to do it."
You can buy diaries that will help you prioritise (like the one below), but just writing out your tasks, identifying their priority and then cutting those that go over 10 works just as well.
You'll find you get a lot more done and feel calmer about what you need to do in general.
How to prioritise your to-do list
- Write out your normal to-do list and put an asterisk next to the tasks that must be done today.
- Split your page into three sections: 'today's most important task', 'minor tasks', 'other tasks' and copy out the tasks into each section.
- Only put one task into the first section, two into 'minor tasks' and then two or three into the 'other tasks' section.
- Rub out or cross off everything on the list that didn't make the cut in the above three sections.
- Store this on a separate list, to look at tomorrow, when you create your new to-do list.
We're not saying that a 'perfect to-do' list exists, but this strategy will get you pretty close.
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