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Ways to Make a Better To-Do List
What's currently on
your to-do list?
A 2012 global survey by
professional networking site LinkedIn found that 63% of professionals
frequently create them.
But are we as
productive as we are organized? Not exactly: The same survey found that only
11% of professionals accomplish everything they plan to do in a given workday.
Clearly, most of us
are on board with keeping to-do lists—but finishing them is a different story.
So we spoke with productivity experts to figure out not only how best to plow
through our lists but also whether there's a best type of list out there to
begin with. And then, just to make you feel a little less alone, we snagged the
looming lists of four real, aspiring list-finishers.
If "figure out
how to be more productive" is on your list, you're about to check it off.
How to Actually Do Your
To-Dos
Documenting the people
and things that need our attention isn't so much of a challenge in itself—the
tricky part is checking off tasks without that "I haven't accomplished anything today!" feeling. To keep moving forward,
keep these four expert tips in mind:
1. Maintain One Master
List
Ken Zeigler a
productivity and time management expert who has conducted over 16 years of
research in the field, suggests a "Master List": a portable pad of
paper (he finds the old-school medium most effective for retention) where you
keep all to-do items (whether financial, personal or professional) for an
entire week. When you have a thought, write it down immediately, then delete it
from your mind. “Allow your mind to be a strategic thinker," he says,
"not a memory chip.”
2. Batch Your Tasks
The next step in
Zeigler's process is to review your Master List daily and transfer action items
onto a Daily List, which should be in electronic form to make it easily
portable and accessible from multiple devices. This list should be
"batched," or separated into groups of similar tasks (like the three
separate emails you must answer in the next hour or the five errands you need
to run in town). Zeigler explains that batching tasks improves productivity.
“By working on all of the similar tasks, it will prevent your jumping from task
to task and help you focus on one type at a time,” he says.
3. Work Toward Larger
Goals
Peter Bregman, author
of “18 Minutes Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get The Right Things
Done” has created his own method for a
list that tackles not just the minutiae of daily life but your larger goals.
It's called the “18 Minutes To-Do-List” To get started, you identify no more than five
goals for the year—both personal and professional—and generate your daily
to-dos keeping those annual goals in mind. Of course, there is space for the
unavoidable minutiae, which is called “the other 5%,” because according to
Bregman, you shouldn't be spending more than 5% of your time on these tasks.
4. Set an Expiration Date
for Each To-Do
When setting yourself up for success,
"next week" isn't an effective time limit. “There's a tremendous
amount of research that points to the fact that if you decide when and where
you're going to do something, you'll do it,” says Bregman. If items stay on
your list for more than three days, Bregman gives you three options: Do it
right away, put it on your calendar for a specific time in the future (place
the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day), or delete
it.
Is There a Best Format
for Your List?
We all have that
friend who dutifully totes around his leather-bound day planner ... and another
who is completely bereft without the "Notes" function on her
smartphone. But is there really a best place to keep your list? Half of those
surveyed by LinkedIn use pen and paper, about 45% use electronic lists, and the
remaining 5% store their lists elsewhere, like on white boards—or in their
heads.
So which list is the
best list? “It's very personal,” explains Bregman. “Either can be effective
depending on your process.
If you go high-tech,
there’s no shortage of options. Pete Pachal, technology editor at Mashable,
suggests the following simple apps:
·
Remember the Milk: Organizes your shopping and to-do lists by due date, includes
time estimates, and can send you text and email reminders for each task.
·
Dot::Along with a standard list, this app lets you share your tasks
and lists for larger projects with friends and family members.
·
Minimalist To Do List: Allows you to add detailed notes for each task, as well as
reorganize your to-dos and email tasks or lists.
If you’re looking for
something a bit more advanced to keep track of websites, documents and all of
the other aspects of your to-do list, Pachal suggests virtual filing app
Evernote photo/voice/note-storing service Google Keep or note-taking
software OneNote.
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