Organizing Tip of the Week - To Do Lists

Organizing Tip of the Week – To do lists. Long, long ago, when life wasn’t as busy, I used to have mental lists of things I had to do for the day. As I got older, my jobs were more demanding, I was involved in extracurricular activities and it just felt like there was not enough time in the day to accomplish all my to do tasks, I started making lists. I thought it would be a good idea to make lists on my phone, set reminders, and use my calendar. Even with doing all these things, I found that there would be tasks that would fall through the cracks. Recently, I heard fellow Professional Organizer, Sharon Lowenheim (owner of Organizing Goddess) who is wonderfully skilled and knowledgeable speak about Time Management.

I would like to share her method of managing tasks and to do lists:

1. Start each day with a task list (you can write your list the night before or the morning of, whenever you have the most energy).

2. Prioritize your task list each day. To prioritize, assign a letter to each task – A = tasks that must be done today, B = tasks that are important but can be done tomorrow and C = everything else.

3. Number the tasks by importance (A1, A2, A3, etc.; B1, B2, B3, etc.; C1, C2, C3, etc.).

4. After prioritizing your task list, look at your calendar and ask yourself if you can realistically accomplish all your As, if not reschedule or change to Bs.

5. Check off the tasks as you accomplish them.

6. Rewrite unfinished items to tomorrow’s list and reprioritize (A, B, C…).

7. Eliminate all other to do lists, you’ll only need one per day.

I hope that your days will be more efficient and that you’ll save time with your updated to do list!