Why To-Do Lists Suck
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You have so much crap to do before the day ends.
So what do you do?
Jot everything down into a list, of course.
Take out the trash
Write an article
Finish project deadline by tonight
Check email
Clean house before mother-in-law gets here
The Problem
Can you see the problem in the list above?
No?
“While to-dos serves as a useful collection of our best intentions, they also tyrannize us with trivial, unimportant stuff that we feel obligated to get done.”
~ Gary Keller , author, The ONE Thing
Gary Keller, the author of The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, believes that to-do lists are not as useful as one may think.
We have the mentality that jotting a list will will help monitor our productivity and progress throughout the day.
One by one.
You check off each thing that you complete and move on to the next.
You might jump around.
Do the easiest ones first. Leave the hard ones last.
Our to-do list ends up being a collection of unimportant tasks with no sense of direction.
By the end of the day, we feel overwhelmed and stressed when we realize that we did not actually accomplish much.
There were soooooooo times where I had a list of unimportant things to do throughout the day mixed it with the important tasks. By the end of each day, I saw that I literally wasted my time (#wastemytime) and did nothing productive to improve myself. I even had times where I had a list with a task of making a list for the next day.
What the crap!
In reality, these lists were making me feel like a failure for not being able to complete a ridiculous list that I created for myself.
How would you feel if the list you created set you up for failure?
In the end, we have wasted our time doing things that did not get us any closer to living a successful life.
The Solution
What do we need to do? What do I need to do?
We have to get rid of to-do lists.
Yes.
We have to create success lists.
“You need a success list — a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.”~ Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing
You basically filter out your to-do list with tasks that actually have meaning and direction towards your goal and add them to your success list.
Keeping this in mind slowly helped me realize what was actually important to accomplish for the day.
But, how do I do that?
Pareto’s Principle
Richard Koch, the author of The 80/20 Principle, speaks of Pareto’s Principle.
“The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.” ~ Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle
Basically, the right input will produce the best results.
This applies to our efforts when leading to a successful life.
Not everything in our to-do list has the same priority; some have more significance than others.
I mean, think about it. No matter how many times I write on my list to wash the dishes, that is NOT going to get me closer to my profession. If I complete tasks from my success list, each step I take is a little closer to where I really want to be.
A success list comes from a to-do list when applying Pareto’s Principle.
In Conclusion
To-do lists suck. Success lists don’t.
Reorganize and prioritize your tasks to help you lead a successful life.
When we find the correct balance to what we do in our life, we might actually accomplish something bigger.
Not only has creating success tasks helped me focus on the bigger picture, I was able to cut out those unnecessary corners that kept spinning me out of control and continue on a straight path to where I want to be.
Some of my tasks from my current success list are
write a post
create a website template
finish project deadline by …
If you want to be successful (by your definition), perhaps the success list will do you some good and help you get closer to a better future.
Call To Action
Question of the Day: What do you have on your success list that makes you successful?
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