How Knowing Your ‘Why’ Can Help You Prioritize Your Work...

Mastering the Daily To-Do List: How Knowing Your ‘Why’ Can Help

Do you start each day with a daily “to-do” list? This is a great way to stay organized and make sure you get things done. The only problem is that many of us find ourselves getting bogged down along the way, and somehow things don’t turn out the way we planned. There are all kinds of problems you can run into while organizing daily tasks, all of which can be solved by understanding your ‘why.’

What Is Your ‘Why?’

Your ‘why’ is the reason behind all that you do. It’s the true goal behind your business that shapes its values. It should be no surprise that it plays a major role in the things we do each day. Even if those things seem small and insignificant, the ‘why’ is always somewhere behind them.?

Wasting Time on Tasks That Don’t Get You to Your ‘Why’

One of the most common problems with to-do lists is that they can become unwieldly with too many tasks that don’t help you reach your goal. In other words, the items on your list aren’t aligned with your ‘why.’ As a result, you spend all day getting things done but not the right things that needed to get done.

An effective way to prevent this is to check with each item on your list and see whether it’s directly related to your goals. If it’s not, is there a way you can delegate, automate, or outsource that task? Maybe it’s an item that doesn’t need to be such high priority or on your list at all. To-do lists are improved by removing unnecessary items.

Your To-Do List Is Upside Down

Prioritizing to-do lists is always a challenge. How do you decide which tasks are most important? With a poorly prioritized list, you run the risk of spending time on the wrong things and not getting to the important tasks.

You can prevent this by checking each item against your ‘why.’ The items that are most closely aligned should go at the top and be given the highest priority.?

Spinning Wheels and Losing Time?

How much time should you spend on each task? If you don’t think about this, you can easily spend too long on one item that takes longer than planned, and then not get to the other items. Balancing time among tasks is essential.?

In addition to prioritizing with your ‘why,’ you can also set time limits. For example, a necessary item that’s not so important can get a 30-minute time limit, while the more complex or important tasks can be dedicated a few hours.

Beyond the Daily To-Do

Daily to-do lists work best when they’re integrated with weekly and monthly lists. The best way to achieve goals is to first identify what success will look like and when you want it to be accomplished. Then work backwards, breaking up big tasks into small chunks that can be done daily.

Your ‘why’ is crucial here since it is what’s behind the long-term goals you want to achieve. Create goals based on your ‘why,’ and then work backward to map out all the steps you need to take to get there. You can then place them in each day so they get done little by little.?