The Ultimate Guide: Top 10 Strategies for an Effective To Do List

 Top 10 Strategies for an Effective To Do List

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1.Give Yourself Deadlines

Work expands to fill time allotted.

It’s an old philosophy that still rings true with how we are productive. For example, say you’re assigned to write a report, and you’re given a week to do it. You’ll likely work on it steadily throughout the week. Or if you’re a procrastinator, you’ll put it off until the night before and finish it.

But what if you’re given that same task and only allotted an hour to complete it? You’ll likely get the report done, but you’ll prioritize the main, important points and highlight those rather than fill it with unnecessary fluff.

The whole point of this is that with your goals and the items on your to do list, you want to havve deadlines. When it comes to to do lists, my suggestion is to give yourself a day to complete the tasks there. This is enough pressure and incentive for you to work hard on them.

2. Check at Your To-Do List Often

An effective to-do list guides you throughout your day. Look at it at the beginning of the week to plan your time. Look at it at the beginning of the day to revise your plan for the day. Look at it after lunch so you know what else you need to focus on for the rest of the day.

When you feel lost in a task or need a break from it, look at your to-do list for something little and easy (a less demanding task that doesn't require high focus) that you can tackle in the meantime.

The more you look at your list, the more you'll trust it. The more you trust it, the less you have to remember what tasks you must do. The less you have to remember, the more you free your mind to focus on the task at hand.

3.Limit Yourself to 3 and 5 Tasks Daily

On average, I check off between three and five tasks per day. If I've inadvertently scheduled 12 tasks for the day, I know I won't get to them all, which means I have to re-prioritize and change some due dates. If I spot this potential problem before my day starts, I can adjust rather than feel stressed out by all those tasks that I would have liked to get done and didn't.

What is your daily task limit? It depends on what kinds of tasks you write down and how difficult they are to complete. Over time, if you track how many tasks you check off each day—the best to-do apps do it for you—you'll learn your maximum. Once you know your max, you can limit your daily assignments to a reasonable number.

The more you finish all your tasks for the day, the better you'll feel about your to-do lists overall. That positive feeling fuels a sense of productivity.

4.Start easy

Even before those MITs (see above), stick a few simple item on the list.

“Fold clothes,” “wash breakfast dishes,” and “shower” are all good examples. Just crossing off routine stuff helps us start the day feeling super-productive.

People warm up before lifting weights or brace themselves before watching the “Cats” butt hole edit. Likewise, getting a bit of momentum going with some productivity dummy runs can prime you for peak goal smashment.

If exercise is where your motivation is lacking, get a head start here.

5.Tackle MITs First

MIT is the “most important task.” Another way to look at this is to tackle the largest and most intimidating task first. Why you want to do this goes back to how our brain works.

You may feel compelled to do the easier tasks first before getting to the bigger task, but the problem is that these tasks—even the easy ones—drain your energy. Furthermore, if you have a really big task to complete, chances are that’s going to be on your mind over the course of the day. That means you’re spending more energy just thinking about it.

All of that wouldn’t be a problem if that big intimidating task was dealt with first thing in the morning.

6.Put Tasks in Your To-Do List, Not Goals and Objectives

What you write on your to-do list matters. Put tasks on your lists, rather than objectives and goals . To do that, you have to know the difference between them.Goals are big-picture achievements or desired outcomes. They're usually difficult to quantify. An example is "become fluent in Hindi." Putting that on your to-do list wouldn't be very effective.

Objectives are markers on the way to reaching a goal. It's much easier to confuse these with tasks because objectives are more specific and quantifiable. An example of an objective might be "have a conversation in Hindi about my favorite movies."

So what are tasks? Tasks are the actions you take to reach an objective. Break an objective down and you have your tasks. Very often they're single events (though they can repeat). A task might be "learn three new Hindi verbs" or "study for 30 minutes."

Tasks—not goals or objectives—are what belong on a to-do list.

7.Keep Your Goals and Objectives Separate

In a perfect world, the tasks you get done each day will be in pursuit of your bigger goals. If not, why are you wasting your time doing them? You need to know what your goals are, but you don't need to write them on your to-do list.

Write down your goals and objectives somewhere else. If your to-do list has a notes section, put them there. If you keep a journal, you might write down your goals and revise them quarterly or annually. Refer to your goals from time to time, but don't let them distract you from the specific things you need to do today.

8.Prioritize important tasks

Many to-do lists allow you to sort or arrange your tasks to keep it organized your way. Some people tend to finish the easy things first, and delay the inevitably time-consuming, bigger tasks, and end up overwhelmed and demotivated when they have to face it.

What we recommend is: You should definitely leverage on this by arranging tasks in order of priority — which tasks are more urgent to be completed, or to get started on right now?

Prioritizing your tasks like this lets you always be effective at accomplishing the most important work on time and overcome the most meaningful obstacles at any given time. So, ask yourself these questions, and arrange your tasks accordingly.

9.Focus on only one thing at a time

Regardless of whether multitasking works or not, focusing on one thing at a time on your to-do list allows you to very efficiently conquer your tasks. There’s no risk of split focus or context switching (both which reduces efficiency).

One frequently overlooked benefit of using a to-do list is that you already have everything noted and tracked. There’s no need to multitask because with a to-do list, you won’t risk forgetting something else as you focus on your current task.

10.Use gamification to stay motivated

If pen and paper isn’t your thing when making to do lists, there are several apps that can guide you along as well. The beauty of to do list apps is that there is more room for creativity, and some of the developers incorporate games into them.

For example, To do list has an achievement system where individuals earn badges as they complete more tasks. There’s also Bounty Tasker, which makes you feel like your tasks are side quests in a video game.