Mastering Your To-Do List

Before we jump into to-do lists, let’s make sure your 2023 calendar is ready to go! If you have your 2023 calendar and you haven’t already done so, go ahead and mark up the entire year. Create structure in your day and plan out your year. Creating this structure will help with time management and will ease the mental clutter.

Plug into your calendar:

• Weekly recurring meetings or client appointments
• Medical appointments
• Lunch
• Times to Check Email
• Workouts
• Birthdays/Holidays/Vacations
• You know your workday, so add anything else that you want to get out of your head and into your calendar – remember the more mental clutter you have, the more stress you’ll have
• Be sure to add prep time on Friday to prep for the following week

You’ll be adding to your calendar on a daily/weekly basis, but at least the bulk of standing items are there. Do you prefer a paper or digital calendar? Neither is a wrong answer, but you must use what works for you. Don’t let others tell you that you must switch over to digital. Whatever form is working for you, continue to use it. Personally, I love a paper calendar and I don’t function well with digital.

Now that your calendar is ready for 2023, we can move on to mastering your to-do list!

How do you organize everything you have to tackle on a weekly basis? If you’re working off a weekly to-do list, are you feeling overwhelmed? With a weekly to-do list, you have a long list of things you need to accomplish, they aren’t in any specific order and some things may not even be a priority. You may look at the list and say 'forget it' there is too much to do, and probably half of it won't get done. By breaking out each day, you can make a more streamlined plan and it won’t be as stressful to tackle. You’ll feel better about the week ahead!

Some make this process more complicated than it needs to be. When you break the process down, it won’t be as overwhelming. You might be saying that you use your calendar as a to-do list and that’s fine also, but some don’t want to clutter their calendar with tasks. Again, everybody functions differently and when working with clients, I tailor systems to how each client functions.

Here is a step-by-step process to mastering your to-do list

• On Friday, look at your week ahead
• Create a daily to-do list for each day of the week
• Start with jotting down (or digitally) what you want to accomplish on Monday
• Create a separate page for each day so as to not get overwhelmed with looking at the entire week
• You can prioritize tasks based on the order and type of tasks that you’d like to tackle
• Do you want to tackle more difficult tasks in the morning vs the afternoon?
• Group like tasks together
• Group tasks that you can get done quickly without much thought
• Continue this process for each day

Planning out your day will help with time management, efficiency, and productivity. You don’t want to bounce between difficult and easy tasks. Group them together and you’ll find you have a better flow to your day. Schedule time each day when you won't be interrupted and tackle that to-do list! We all know how much we can get done when we aren't interrupted!

Understanding that interruptions happen every day, you may not finish your to-do list. Cross off what you’ve tackled and move the rest to the next day or if it’s not a priority, move it to another day. By the end of the week, you should feel great that you had a productive week!

Whether you are using paper or digital – continue to use what works for you. I conducted a poll here on LinkedIn – 59% use paper, 24% use digital, and 18% like to keep it in their head. Again, I prefer a paper to-do list - but again, everybody functions differently.

Remember, the easier the system, the easier it is to follow. If the system isn’t working for you, don’t continue to work with a broken system. Tweak the system until it works for you! Try practicing this method in the week ahead. Reach out and let me know how it works for you!

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