Tame your to-do list

Some days when I get in to the office, I take one look at my to-do list and shudder. Sometimes there may be 10-20 things that I need to get done in a day. While there are many out there who say that you should simply whittle your list down to the three most important things to do in any given day, sometimes that’s just not a possibility (especially when you have a boss that insists you get the ten things done already on your to-do list as well as an additional five that pop up during the day).

So what do you do if you can’t eliminate all but three items? Simple. You have to prioritize. Then you have to throw those priorities out the window.

Sounds a little backwards, doesn’t it? Well, the strategy that works best for me is to pick the three most important things I need to get done during the day. I mark them on my to-do list (I usually put a dot next to them). I then start on one of the tasks. After a few minutes I generally decide to move on to something else instead (structured procrastination). I keep doing this until I get everything on my list done. I’m also not afraid to move something up to the next day if I don’t complete it. I also sometimes delegate (but unfortunately that’s not usually an option for me since I’m really the only person in my “department”).

Some other techniques that I use:

I’m a “burst” worker, not a “busy” worker. I might sit and do virtually nothing for a half hour or more, and then get an hour’s worth of work done in the next half hour. This is how I stay sane at work. I have a lot of varied job duties, and this method allows me to change roles without feeling like I’m going to go crazy.

I keep a Moleskine notebook for my to-do list. I also use it as my “inbox”. I started my to-do lists in the front of the book, working my way back. My “inbox” and ideas I started on the last page and am working my way forward. This way I won’t end up wasting pages in the middle of the book if my “inbox” fills up quicker than my to-do’s or vice versa.

Use Firefox. One thing that I generally have to do for both work and my blogging and business activities is keep up with the blogosphere. I use a mix of iGoogle (with different tabs for different topics) and Firefox. In the morning when I get to work, I open a new tab with each blog post that I want to read. Then I go through all of them and as I read each one I close it out. I also at this time bookmark anything that I want to blog about later, or email things to coworkers and my bosses that might be of interest.

So, while narrowing down your to-do list to only 3 things can work wonderfully, sometimes it’s just not feasible. When that’s the case, you have to create other strategies for dealing with tasks.

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