The daily pressures of the TO-DO list

I hope you enjoyed reading the series on the to-do list. If you have followed it religiously you would realize that your to-do list has really been getting full there are so many things on that to-do list and you are really getting impressed by the fact that you are getting a lot of things on your list. By this time however you would have realized that at the end of every day you would have a list of unaccomplished tasks. This might at first seem worrying to some of you and then you soon figure out that those activities can be postponed to another date so you go ahead and do that. At the end of the next day you observe a similar thing, your list is full of unaccomplished tasks and this goes on for some time. You soon realize that something has to be done about it because after a couple of weeks there are so many things on the list that have not been touched and you cannot see how you are going to ever get to touch them. This soon brings you to feel that this to-do list thing might not be full proof so you abandon it in search of something that could help you do everything that you put on that list before the close of the day.

Usually there is a lot of pressure on the user of the to-do list to accomplish everything on his list but an experienced person would realize that this shouldn’t be the case. There is a very simple way of dealing with this type of pressure and it is quite easy. Just simply clear you to-do list of all uncompleted tasks.

You might be thinking at this point that what would be the use of putting things on the list in the first place if you would just end up taking them of. Well the simple answer to that is this, if a task has been on your list for two weeks or more and you haven’t been able to put a specific date when it would be tackled, then it might as well leave the list for tasks that would be more relevant. If it is relevant then you should have put a clear date by which time you should have completed that task but if you haven’t done so then you might as well reconsider taking it of your very important list.

So that is it take of what is not necessary from your list and that would remove the clutter on your to-do list. Clearing it up will take of the pressure and help you concentrate on the more important things on your list.

I hope this was helpful. Please feel free to give some feedback, you could leave a comment or mail me to share your thoughts. Thank you.

The power of the to-do list: When?

Using the to-do list has no restrictions on time of use. Although it said in a lot of circles that there are times to use it, in actual fact there is no such thing.

The whole issue about time comes from these concerns of most users of the to-so list about organizing yourself. Most people who use the to-do list over time are usually more efficient than the average person who doesn’t use one. Most of these people believe in starting the day early and quickly getting on top of things as a result they make it a habit to look at their to-do list to have a better idea of what will be done in that day. It is for this reason that it is the usual practice to visit your to-do list first thing in the morning.

You would start thinking about what you should do with the list when new tasks come your way what would be the next line of action? Well you just go ahead and update the list as things go on. Depending on the way you prioritize your activities you could reschedule certain tasks. It is really cool when you start using a to-do list to manage your busy life style and it can be very rewarding.

To me this has been one of the most important things that I have come across in my life and it has been a real blessing to me if you haven’t started using it, please start it now and see the massive changes that come your way.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

The power of the to do list : Why?

This part of the series is for those of you who still believe it is ok to go without a to-do list. Why would you need a to-do list? Well I could go around the reason and let it sound really detailed and difficult but I won’t. It is simple enough. You can’t keep everything in your head and expect to be very effective. Right there, that is all that you need to know about it. Now I would go ahead to still explain if you haven’t agreed yet.

When you are a highly busy person you would increasingly realize that your brain is not the best place to store certain information. Like the day you were supposed to get to an appointment which was lets say 9:00 in the morning. Your brain might remember but not necessarily on time. Well this would likely be the story of someone who decided to store all appointments and tasks in his or her head. Now let’s take a guy who has a to-do list and updates it religiously. Well you would notice the following. He wakes up on the morning of the meeting looks at his to-do list and from his list of activities he sees it right there, Meeting at 9:00, he didn’t have to leave all that work to his mind to recollect, all he did was to simply run through the list of things he had scheduled for the next day, and any time he looked at his list there it was right in his face for him to start working on.

I could go on giving examples but I am sure that if you sat down to think of the number of times you forgot something though it was very important I am sure that you would realize that if you were using a to-do list that wouldn’t have skipped your mind.

It is this element of the to-do list that makes it so powerful your ability to accomplish a lot could be increased considerably when you use this most powerful tool

Remember it is far better to store things on a piece of paper or any storage device than in your head unless it is a secret.

Aknowledgment for christmas message picture

I will like to thank Salvatore Vuono for the wonderful picture of the Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas

 

My Christmas message

 

Hi folks out there, I hope you have had a wonderful year so far. It has been an interesting one for me too and I hope you have taken time to enjoy every moment of this season.

Todays post is about enjoying the year. And I feel that should be my theme for this Christmas season. It is Christmas and some of you would be in a celebratory mood seeing that your year has gone well, you might have more money in the bank and you also might have finally gotten rid of your lonely past and moved on, but no matter what is going on currently in your life I think it would be beneficial to you if you took time to enjoy this very special day. It is important that you learn to be grateful for what you currently have in order to be able to move on to what you want. I think gratitude is the best way to enjoy this years Christmas. So go out and have fun (responsible fun) and enjoy Christmas with family or friends or even better both of them. You can’t let any thing get you down, you need a break from all the pressures of life and I think you should really take time of to clear your mind.

The big message is this it is in your own interest to enjoy this day. I am not a very Christmas kind of person but I feel it is important to take a break from your regular life and concentrate on things that are also important in life. Having good memories can help you go through bad times.

So enjoy this festive season and MARRY CHRISTMAS to all of you.

 

The power of the to-do list : How?

The question most people pose to any new concept or even if it is not new to them upon being reintroduced to it they generally like to know how this system or concept or theory will be implemented.

Now that you know exactly what the to-do list is the how can take center stage. It is as simple as I have described earlier on. Just get yourself a simple piece of paper a pencil or a pen and then you are done. You can optionally decide to write boldly on top of it as a sort of a heading “to-do list”. It is as simple as that. You now have in your hands the basic tools of warfare for tackling time and tasks.

Wait, it is not yet complete you are now half way through. To make it complete look for a place to sit and then with your to-do list in hand, start writing down the list of tasks that you will like to complete by the end of the day. You can list them just the way you want to either in the order that it comes out of your head or in the order of priority (that is the most important task first). Another way practiced is to handle the much more difficult tasks first.

Doing this at the start of your day and updating it as you go along the day will be beneficial. The tools are not limited to paper alone but any writing device can be used.

It might look like this is not enough but believe me doing this alone will quickly move you into a better position in handling tasks.

Remember, you take a piece of paper or a note book or a PDA. You find a good place to sit down and you immediately start writing down in the form a list of things that you will like to accomplish by the end of the day preferably early in the morning.

The power of the to do list Intro

The rest of this series will be devoted to answering questions concerning the use of the to-do list. The following questions will be answered.

How?

Why?

When?

Is there and element of science tied to this

Some more questions will be added as time goes on and the format given above is likely to have some changes but it will still give you the insight that you need to know about the to-do list.