How to Create a TO-DO list That Gets DONE

I was making less than Johnny, the 9 year old fighting alligators for golf balls in the water hazard at the 12th hole; but I felt like I was working just as hard.

That seemed to be the story of my business – well – busy-ness. I had all the tools and techniques; call scripts and emails; meetings and professionals, magic powders and potions; and still I wasn’t making a dime.

I thought seriously about giving Johnny a run for his money but I was too busy to look up alligator wrestling techniques.

Not kinda busy either. I was the “wake up at 6:00 am go to bed at midnightish with my iPad in hand so I could churn out a few more emails or a blog post before I doze off for 2 hours” kinda busy.

If you've ever been there then you know something has to change - and fast.

Step 1: FIND THE WASTE.

I needed to turn things around if I planned to make my profession profitable. Since I am a Six Sigma process ninja the first thing I did was measure my daily activities so I could see where my time was going and what I could add, cut, and compile. This is how it looked:

My to do list always started with 10-12 items on it. I would remove one item but add another 2 or 3. My goal everyday was to get through the list.

I never got through the list.

The items on the list were always something like:

Improve website this, add website that, write blog post this, flesh out that idea, come up with the epic marketing email, send out a 1000 requests, enter them into CRM, do some social media stuff, write a chapter of a book,check Facebook, set up an accounting package (ie Quickbooks) just in case I make some money,check LinkedIN, read someone else’s blog on how to write a great blog title, figure out how to make tomorrow less busy, look at bank account to see if some lottery winnings came in, and so on.

There was no rhyme or reason to what I was doing and I never really any goals other than to get stuff done. So I was busy, but I wasn’t productive. Meaning I wasn’t producing anything – especially money!

I measured where I was spending my time. In 30 days I had completed 302 business maintenance tasks, 1 income producing task, and 0 relationship building task. I reached 1 goal – which was to measure where I was spending my time.

Helen Keller could write a book and give a dissertation in Latin on the 8752 reasons that I was broke! But in the simplest terms: I was broke because I was busy.

I was busy working on the wrong things. It was time to make some serious improvements. So by leveraging that Six Sigma process improvement knowledge I was ready to get to work.

Step 2: THE FORMULA.

I did some homework to figure out how to be more productive. After much analysis this is what I came up with:

• There should be no more than 8 tasks to do in a single day.
• Two of those tasks should be Self-Improvement tasks and are the only tasks that can be (should be) split up during the day.
• Each task can take no more than 52 minutes total; and a task can always be less than 52 minutes.
• Once a task is done… it is done! No adding extra stuff to it.
• Tasks should fall into 4 categories in the following order:
  • 2x Income Production Tasks (for entrepreneurs) or
    2x Work Production Tasks
  • 2x Relationship Building
  • 2x Business Maintenance
  • 2x Self Improvement – this task can be spread over the day
• If a task takes longer than 52 minutes, then split it up into multiple tasks. Tasks should be goal oriented.
• If for some reason you don’t get to some tasks, those tasks go to the top of the list tomorrow and you can still only have a total of 8 tasks. I.e. If you have 3 left over from today then there are only 5 tasks for tomorrow.
• If you have time left over you can do anything you want – even work related; but only the difference remaining in an 8 hour window.
• Self Improvement is last on the list but is as critical as income production.

Now you might be thinking, “Great! So you took 2-4 items off of your list! That is not rocket science!”

But hold on – take a closer look. It is not the tasks that I took off, it is how the tasks are structured and the agreement of the amount of time I would spend on a specific type of task.

For example: When I had to write a blog post, usually I would take about 2-4 hours to do it because I did not have a time limit. I would check and double check everything, find the perfect pictures, make sure that everything flowed, and would put Shakespeare to shame with my musings that no one would read!

Now I have 52 minutes to make magic happen. I usually get done in less than 45 minutes so I can get some self-improvement time in.

Step 3: MAKE YOURSELF A PROMISE

To implement my new and improved day I started the night before. I wrote down the 2 things that I would do in each category. I made a promise to myself that I would work on these items in the time allotted. I called my list the Elite 8. It looked like this:

• Make up to 10 calls. Goal: 1 interested contact (Income production)
• Reach out to 10 event planners that I have worked with before that have upcoming events. Goal: 1 interested contact.(Income production)
• Reach out to 5 new event planners. Goal: 1 new relationship. (Relationship building)
• Reach out to 5 previous contacts that I have worked with to stay connected. Goal: 1 response (Relationship building)
• Write 1 blog post for 3 associations within my target audience. Goal: 1 guest blog post accepted (Business Maintenance)
• Add last week’s guest posts to social media. Goal: 1 engagement. (Business Maintenance)
• Walk for 10 minutes every hour and listen to an audio book. (Self Improvement)
• Go to dance class <– YAY! (Self Improvement)

The next day I would follow the plan. At night I would repeat.

I was committed to following the plan for 30 days and measuring the results. I went from 1 income production task per month to 40. Event planners were reaching back to me for new opportunities. I had tons of free time and I felt better. Hell – I looked better.

I wasn’t so tired and frustrated. You might be thinking because I make tons of money in that thirty days. And I would love to tell you that I closed thousands of dollars of business that month, but I did not. It took 6-8 weeks to make 10s of thousands of dollars in business and that cycle has been continuous.

The best part is that I have so much time on my hands. My day usually starts at 8 and ends at 2. Every night I go to dance class, I take walks during phone calls, and I listen to about 40 books per year.

I still do other stuff in my business after I have completed my Elite Eight – but the Eight is the priority and the promise that I make to myself.

For example: I have coaching clients that I meet with; I have an accountability group that I work with; and I take time to write a chapter or two in my book… if I feel like it. The point is that my days are scheduled, my productivity is high, my bank account is fat, and that kid is saving up for college with my golf balls… all of them.

I’ve fallen off the wagon a couple of times for a big project, but that is the exception and not the norm. I also have modified my Elite Eight list during “sales season” to exclude business maintenance and increase sales tasks. And during “slow season” to increase business maintenance and reduce sales tasks.