If you are like many people, you probably have some To-Do list that need to be To-Done.
Whatever you call it (shopping list, reminder notes, etc.) it is something that has crept into our lives, and nags us until it is dead (i.e. completed).
We love them and hate them. And we need them! Research has shown that people who go to a supermarket with a shopping list get more done, and don’t forget anything. (Really? Who funded this research? The Institute for Obviousness?)
This blog is not meant to be yet another “To Do List” or “A checklist on How to get things done”. However, I have been a prisoner of “To Do Lists”. And over the years I have discovered the following: They don’t work!
Therefore, I will be posting my own advice and observations about To Do Lists: How to get things done, how to free up the dread of “To-Do”, and how to have more time to enjoy life.
My replies are in no particular order of preference (until all these posts go big, and then I will publish it as a book). But here is your first order of business: Grab all of those slips of paper, post-it notes, and digital diary reminders, and put the To-Do stuff on one single last mega-list. Keep that list and destroy the others. As you make that master list, see if you can cross-off anything. And as you consolidate the list, see if what you are moving over is “list-worthy”
Now, you might think I’m being contradictory by saying keep one list (for now), but I don’t want anyone throwing out a list that has “Pick Up Grandma’s Heart Medicine” on it.
Once you’ve create that master list we will re-organize and chip away at it, but only if you observe the following rule from this point forward:
Rule 1: With the exception of Unique Grocery Lists (such as “Food to buy for the Family Reunion Barbecue”), or Unique Shopping Lists (such as “Pick Up Grandma’s Heart Medicine”), or a Unique Singleton To-Do (“Clean up the back yard for the Family Reunion Barbecue”), you will learn to do away with “To-Do” lists.
More to follow!