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To-Do Lists

The Key to Efficiency

Do you frequently feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do? Do you face a constant barrage of looming deadlines? Or do you sometimes just forget to do something important, so that people have to chase you to get work done?

All of these are symptoms of not keeping a proper "To-Do List". To-Do Lists are prioritized lists of all the tasks that you need to carry out. They list everything that you have to do, with the most important tasks at the top of the list, and the least important tasks at the bottom.

While this sounds a simple thing to do, it's when people start to use To-Do Lists properly that they often make their first personal productivity / time management breakthrough, and start to make a real success of their careers.

By keeping a To-Do List, you make sure that you capture all of the tasks you have to complete in one place. This is essential if you're not going to forget things. And by prioritizing work, you plan the order in which you'll do things, so you can tell what needs your immediate attention, and what you can quietly forget about until much, much later. This is essential if you're going to beat work overload. Without To-Do Lists, you'll seem dizzy, unfocused and unreliable to the people around you. With To-Do Lists, you'll be much better organized, and will seem much more reliable. This is very important!

Preparing a To-Do List

To start preparing your To-Do List, download our To Do List template.

Start by writing down all of the tasks that you need to complete, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until you have listed everything that you have to do, and until tasks are will take no more than 1-2 hours to complete. This may be a huge and intimidating list, but our next step makes it manageable!

Next, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important, or very urgent) to F (unimportant, or not at all urgent). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order.

You will then have a precise plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face. You will be able to tackle these in order of importance or urgency. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones.

Tip: Once you're comfortable with use of To-Do Lists, you need to start differentiating between urgency and importance. For more on this, see our article on the Urgent/Important Matrix.

Using Your To-Do Lists

Different people use To-Do Lists in different ways in different situations: if you are in a sales-type role, a good way of motivating yourself is to keep your list relatively short and aim to complete it every day.

In an operational role, or if tasks are large or dependent on too many other people, then it may be better to keep one list and 'chip away' at it.

It may be that you carry unimportant jobs from one To-Do List to the next. You may not be able to complete some very low priority jobs for several months. Only worry about this if you need to – if you are running up against a deadline for them, raise their priority.

If you have not used To-Do Lists before, try them now: They are one of the keys to being really productive and efficient.

Key points:

Prioritized To-Do Lists are fundamentally important to efficient work. If you use To-Do Lists, you will ensure that:

• You remember to carry out all necessary tasks
• You tackle the most important jobs first, and do not waste time on trivial tasks.
• You do not get stressed by a large number of unimportant jobs.

To draw up a Prioritized To-Do List, download our template and use it to list all the tasks you must carry out. Mark the importance of the task next to it, with a priority from A (very important) to F (unimportant). Redraft the list into this order of importance.

Now carry out the jobs at the top of the list first. These are the most important, most beneficial tasks to complete.

The next article in this section looks at Action Programs - an "industrial strength" version of To-Do Lists, for use when you need to manage very many projects at the same time. To find out more about these, click "Next Article" below.

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Extension Resources (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)

* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club members.

Locke's Goal Setting Theory - Understanding SMART Goal Setting
Golden Rules of Goal Setting - Five rules to set yourself up for success
Backward Goal-Setting - Using backward planning to set goals
New Year's Resolutions - Planning for a year of achievement
Prioritization - Making best use of your time and resources
Action Priority Matrix - Making the most of your opportunities*
The Art of Filing - Managing your documents... and your time
The Urgent/Important Matrix - Using time effectively, not just efficiently*
Treasure Mapping - Visualizing your goal for greater achievement*
How Good is Your Time Management? - Discover tools that can help you*
Pickle Jar Theory - Make your schedule work. Leave time for fun!*

A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.

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