Tips for a top 5 to-do list that will keep you focused on what’s most important and urgent
This blog is about creating a to-do list that will help you prioritize and focus on the top three to five things that you need to do every day.
There are lots of daily planners, calendars and to-do lists on different applications for your phone and it’s great to try different ones and see which ones work for your needs.
But this is one simple method that doesn’t require an app. And it that has helped many people and anyone can use this method on their phone.
Here’s how you can remember what is the most important thing for you to focus on doing and create a system to remind you to do what will have the most impact:
Use a note section on your phone to keep up with your to-dos.
The most efficient to-do list for staying focused on what’s important and urgent
First, just write down three to five or more of the items that you have to do the next day.
If your list is really long and it’s grown to more than five items, be sure to spend a moment
the night before just to review the list.
Ask yourself what are the three to five most important items that are either the most urgent
or that will have the biggest impact or both.
And then cut and paste these items to the top of your to-do list, putting them in the order of importance and urgency as the top three to five items.
Then at the top of the list, `write the date. Maybe it says top five list, then has the date and then it has your items listed.
Maybe there’s seven items with the most important and urgent being the first three to five on that list.
So then when you start your day and throughout the day, you can look at this list and it has the priority set for the top three to five most important urgent items.
That way you can do what’s the most important and urgent first.
Helping you achieve your short- and longterm goals
Your goal is to get these top three to five items done.
Then throughout the day if other items come up during the day, you can use this list as a tool
to add these items to your to-do list, but not necessarily replacing the three to five most
important or urgent.
The new items may go at the bottom of the list just depending on the urgency of the new
item.
Throughout the day as you complete items write done beside the item when you have the task finished. Just put a dash and then write ‘done’ beside it. Next cut and paste that item to the bottom of your list.
That way at the end of the day, the goal is to have the top three to five most urgent and important items done.
If there are any remaining items on your list, just cut and paste the date and move it down and put the date above the completed items and below the remaining to do list items.
Perhaps you had seven items on the list and you completed five and you had moved those five items to the bottom and had already written “done” beside them. Now just between the two remaining items and the completed items, just put the date that you did those completed items.
And then at the top, put tomorrow’s date at the top above the remaining to do items to do what’s left the next day.
Assess and prioritize tomorrow’s to-do list
Next just take a moment to prioritize your to-dos again and make sure you’re ready for the
next day to do whatever’s most important or urgent.
This system is great precisely because it’s simple. And because over time you will see how
much you’ve accomplished.
You can go back at the end of the day and see that you met your goals. Even if there’s things remaining to do, you can feel good that you got what was most important done first.
Also over time, you can see after a week you are 35 steps closer to accomplishing bigger goals. You can make sure throughout the day it keeps you focused on what you need to do and makes you less likely to be distracted by new items that pop up.
How this method helps with time management and organization
If you’re using a calendar and you had things listed on the calendar, you don’t have to spend a lot of time reorganising the calendar the next day with different to-do lists.
Or if you were using an app, you may have to do more complicated reorganisation for the next day.
With this, the information’s still in your to-do list.
If it’s uncompleted, you’re just moving a date from today’s date, you’re just moving it to the completed items and putting tomorrow’s date for the items to do tomorrow.
So, there’s not a lot of editing to do. And throughout the day you’re looking at your list, it’s easy to see what has the highest priority.
You can still use your calendar for things like places you need to be or important times you have to do something.
But this to-do list can just help provide a list of to-dos in your notes section on your phone that can help you direct your focus throughout the day when you have time to get these tasks done and helps you see over time how much you’re getting done.