Recently Made the Switch to a Daily To-Do List

I’ve recently made a change to the way I organize and “intend” my day (each and every day), and it’s been a very positive adjustment.

I’m a very heavy user of Microsoft Outlook and my BlackBerry. (I tend to burn through BlackBerry’s at the rate of about one per year.) In both tools I list all of my outstanding Tasks, my Contacts, my Calendar, email of course, and other miscellaneous notes.

I generally sit down sometime each Sunday and organize my schedule for the coming week. I make sure I have ample time to travel from one meeting to another, I may adjust meetings to reduce travel, etc.

I also take this time each Sunday to review my outstanding Tasks, to ensure the list is accurate and, to the best of my knowledge, complete. All of my Tasks are categorized in two ways. First by the role in my life the Task pertains too (for example, Son, Father, Home Owner, Parmasters KW, S.H. Southern and Associates, etc.), and then also by urgency and importance.

Now for the change I’ve recently made.

In the past, each Sunday, I would allocate time throughout the coming week to tackle each Task. It’s very easy in Outlook to drag and drop a Task onto your Calendar. So, as a hypothetical example, I might allocate 8:00am to 9:00am on the Tuesday to updating the Parmasters KW website. And then I may allocate 9:00am to 10:00am to another Task. Etc.

I’ve now switched to a simple daily to-do list. I’m not sure why, but I’m finding this new (to me) approach both easier to organize (and re-organize as the day progresses), and also more productive.

I’m not sure if it’s the simple joy of crossing an item off my to-do list, or if it’s the fact that I can see my Tasks for the day in one very succinct view, or if there’s some other factor(s) at play. Regardless, the change has been positive, and thus has become habit.

So now, at the close of each day, I simply prepare my to-do list for the next day. Whether doing so on my BlackBerry or in Outlook, it’s quick and simple to drag existing outstanding Tasks onto my daily to-do list.

Oh, in addition, my daily to-do list includes a list of calls that I must place that day, emails I must initiate/send, and other activities.

Now I can revisit my to-do list and cross off the task “Write blog entry.”

Make it a great day!