Five Steps to Tame Your To Do List

So you have your to do list and it’s really piling up. You know, maybe it’s five things and you’re looking for five steps to get done. You could use one to do this or two to get that one thing done and then another to write the other five things down. But you know what? Your list is longer than you can remember!

Okay, let’s think about this shall we? What’s the number one reason that people forget their list? It’s not remembering what they had already accomplished. No, it’s that they don’t know what else they need to get done. If you take the time to develop an A/B/C list then you can spend your time on more important things.

A/B/C/D/E/F Your List

First, let’s look at your A list. There may be five steps on there and you are using them to get something done. Those five steps make up your plan. Write them down, memorize them, understand them, and execute them. Your plan will get your task done and then you will feel good about yourself because you accomplished something.

Now look at your B list. There might be five steps on there and you have no idea what they are. In fact, you haven’t executed any of them yet. You know that they are important and need to be done, but you have no idea how to get started. Write those down also, memorize them, understand them, and execute them.

Your C list is a little trickier. You need to get five steps executed first. Write those down as well, memorize them, understand them, and execute them. Now your five-step program is starting to take shape and it is getting done. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but now you are getting where you want to be.

Your D list contains the things that you need to do but can’t get started on yet. It usually contains things that you don’t care to do but need to do in order to satisfy some other need. When it comes to my list I don’t care what it is, but it needs to be done. So I write it down, even though it might not seem important. If I’m going to have a paper written in a week, I write it down on my D list even though I might not be able to get started on it until the next week. Once it gets done, I can go back and do what needs to be done and wait for the results.

Your E-list is usually filled with the things that you know you need to do but aren’t sure how to accomplish them. The trick to taming your list is to know what it is you need to accomplish. Once you know what you need to do, you can begin the process of listing the tasks you need to accomplish. Once you know exactly what you need to do, you can put your list into order from easiest to hardest.

Your F list is for finishing what you started. So if you created an essay, created a movie script, created an outline for a novel you want to write, created a blog post, or any number of other documents that you know you need to accomplish, then you create your F list. This list will have all the information that you need to accomplish what you need to accomplish and know that you have done everything you can to get this task done. Then you finish up your E-list and move on to your T list for the time being.