Why is it important to me to have a To-Do list

How many times has someone told you how to manage your to-do list? I am sure at least once you may have come across an article or someone explaining how to-do list is important and how it can revolutionize your day to day work adding up to your milestones and goals.

In 11 years of my career I have created countless to-do lists and always left them barren. I did not update the list items, I did not add new items to the list, I did not prioritize my day to day work in the list, and eventually I did not feel the need of to-do list since it did not show me any immediate results. Yet sooner or later I felt disorganizaed, I tend to forget important items or even promises through which I could have fostered working relationships.

About 3.5 years ago I started a personal project of a sporty daily driven Honda Civic ’96. It had to go through an engine swap with some performance upgrades. However there were so many items in sight that I knew I would not be able to keep track of. A typical car upgrade had to go through various modifciations of engine, brakes, fueling system, ait intake system, suspension work, wiring, electronics, body work and tuning.

It was overwhelming to track what was done and how much was spent. I once had forgotten that I had to pay off my tuner for sourcing few items and how much I had to pay him. So I started off with a simple list — Items, Source (where I got the items from), How much I had paid, How much I had to pay and any future spendings I may have to do. Following is a snip of the list I have created and its still being updated and has more going on.

Through out the first iteration of upgrades I realized that without the list I would tend to forget things, create assumptions and have misleading communication with my mechanic and tuner hence I felt the need to keep this list updated. This was definitely not intentional but a result of not keeping track of decisions taken or items completed. Whenever I had to talk to someone about what was done, and what had to be done next, I could ask for few minutes, revisit the list on my computer or phone and discussion and make decisions.

This experience had given me the confidence of why to-do list is important. The above is just a small portion of my entire spectrum of tasks that I have to perform and keep track of, in personal and professional life.

Some tasks come naturally and are based on instincts, some tasks are realized and assigned to your ownself but then some tasks are assigned to us by others. I have experienced and realized that I should strive to capture all task at least once, track them at least once and see if the benefit exceeds the cost. Hopefully I will discuss this in another post the concept of success list and how I manage my to-do list tog et maximum out of it.

Some recognition of my mentor is due :)