A good to-do list is an essential productivity tool. It helps you to manage your private as well as your business tasks in an efficient way. Your to-do list will show you what tasks you already accomplished, what tasks remain open and how you should manage your time.
Today, we would like to provide you with some practical advice. We believe that a structured to-do list can be the world’s simplest, yet best productivity tool – or the worst productivity killer, if the list is unclear and chaotic. So, how to create an efficient to-do list?
1. Differentiate: Task, projects and goals
Your to-do list should only contain tasks, no projects or goals. Let’s illustrate this with an example. Your next project is to organize your birthday party. Your goal is to throw a party that everybody will remember. Now you can break your project down into tasks:
- Order beverages
- Order or prepare food
- Organize DJ/music
- Create a guest list
- Send out invitations
- Determine the ideal date
2. Split big tasks into handy ones
Did you notice? We just broke a major rule! Your to-do list has to remain manageable at all times. Don’t create tasks that cannot be accomplished in one step or by you. The trick is to split big tasks into small, handy and straightforward ones. The task “order or prepare food” is too heavy. Let’s try again:
- Buy chips and other nibbles
- Ask Mirjam to bring her supreme homemade savoury snacks (# 01 234 23 23)
- Order a birthday cake for 30 persons at Knusper’s Bakery (# 01 889 34 12)
The task “organize DJ/music” should also be split into handier ones.
3. Label your tasks properly
As you can see, we tried to describe our tasks as accurately as possible. It pays off to include telephone numbers or addresses alongside the task. This way, you won’t lose any time in order to clarify your tasks later on. “Order beverages” hence becomes “order 5 crates of beer and 10 bottles of champagne @ food & drink retailer “Boozemaster & Co.” (# 01 887 66 55).
4. First things first
It’s all about priorities. Some things require immediate attention. Moreganize offers you the possibility to assign deadlines as well as priorities to your tasks. A hint: you can drag & drop the entries on your task list. Try to keep the most important ones at the top of your to-do list. This has a psychological effect, as you will perceive them as the ones that require immediate attention. You can change the order at any time.
Considering all of this, let’s have a look at our improved example:
The efficient to-do list
Another hint for your most important task: Find the ideal date via our simple scheduling poll!
