How to organize your to-do list!

I’m a big fan of to-do lists!  They help keep me organized and on track.  And once I put something on the to-do list, I don’t need to keep it bumping around in my brain, because I just know that I’ll get to it when it’s turn comes around.

Let’s get started making your to-do list work for you!

Review the items on your to-do list

First, I want you to review the items on your to-do list. Cross off anything that’s a “should” vs. a want or a need. Here’s the difference:

• Should’s are things that are on your list because they’re important to someone else (your friends, family, or society)
• Wants are things you’re excited about and looking forward to
• And Needs are things that need to happen to keep clothes on your body, a roof over your head, and food on your table (these are things like laundry, work, and cooking dinner). The needs might not be things you enjoy, but they are necessary to make it possible for you to do the wants.

There’s room for a lot of nuance here, but this gives you a general outline to get started.  As you work with your to-do list you might add in something you crossed off realizing it’s a need or a want, or you might cross off things you later realize are shoulds.  Give yourself permission to be flexible as you learn what works for you!

Now that you’ve edited your list, it’s time to organize it.

I would suggest using one of three techniques:

You can organize your to-do list by time

To do this, you would list out your to-do tasks on a calendar with time slots, blocking out a sufficient amount of time for each task. If you go this route, I would encourage you to add in 50% more time than you expect for each task. It’s much easier to find a short task to take care of if you finish early and have a little extra time than to move your entire schedule if something takes longer than expected.

Adding in this 50% buffer also helps you follow through on promises and be better about knowing when you don’t have time to take on another commitment.

You can organize by priority

In this approach, you would place the highest priority items at the top of your to-do list. The less important something is, the lower down on the list it goes.  To use this to-do list, you would simply start at the top and work your way down the list.

You might prefer to keep this type of list electronically instead of written out on paper to avoid having to re-write the list every time you need to add to, or edit it.

Or you can organize by task type

To use this technique, create categories of groups and then add each task under the appropriate group.  For instance, you might group together your home projects, your work projects, and errands that need to be run. You can drill down even further and group together all the phone calls you need to make, list your errands in the order it makes sense to do them in, whatever makes sense to you!

Make it work for YOU!

You can use each technique separately, or create a hybrid system combining two or more of these systems.  For instance, you might include expected time to complete next to each item, but organize by task type, or you could add tasks to your time block system by priority.

Regardless of the technique you choose, the most important thing is to remember that tasks often take longer than expected. Plan extra time in for each task, and you avoid setting yourself up for burnout, over commitment, exhaustion, and frustration!

I’m sending you a great big hug – you’ve got this!