Managing a To-Do List

Mini Audio Lesson
Managing Your
To-Do List

Throwing hard for nine innings
is not enough!

Most of us would probably classify ourselves as busy people. We get up in the morning, and almost from the moment we get out of bed, we begin tackling what seems to be an endless series of tasks. We are so busy that sometimes we try to handle more than one task at a time (reading mail while returning a phone call) all in an attempt to quiet the noisy, handle the urgent, deal with the visible and attempt to suppress the guilt. We go to bed each night exhausted, yet unable to sleep because of all the thoughts and worries about what didn’t get done. The next morning, we repeat the process all over again. Sound familiar?

Being busy is not the objective. Look around you—there are lots of busy people, but few who really can get things accomplished. Once again, we turn and examine the highly productive people.

< Listen to some commentary about this topic.

The myth of what we manage

Perhaps it is just semantics, but an underlying issue I find that most of us have about success lies in an understanding of what exactly it is that we manage. Nobody can manage time! What we do manage is ourselves, as we relate to time. Time ticks by, second after second, whether we are accomplishing anything or not. What we do manage is our behaviors and activities, as time passes. We make choices as to what actions we take during each time segment. The dilemma, as well as the solution, exists not with time, but with the choices we are making with our time.

As we live out life and pursue excellence, one of the proposals to internalize is the idea that the most important thing we manage isn’t time at all . . . it is our self!

How then can we manage ourselves? Here are some thoughts. Make sure that this concept is firmly grounded in your thinking: "I only manage myself. I can choose how I will act and react in each situation that I encounter." Dwight Eisenhower said, “The history of free men is not written by chance, but by choice: their choice.”

A minority of activities produces
a majority of the results

Most of us approach time management assuming we need to figure out a way to get it all done. This can be delusional. Balance doesn't come by trying to figure out how to do it all, but by developing the ability to choose what is most important.

Not everything that is making noise or appears to be urgent is important. A ringing telephone is both noisy and urgent, but rarely is it important. Yet, identifying too many tasks as "Important" only pressures us into guilt-ridden indecision. To say that everything is important is just as useless as saying nothing is important. But how do we begin the sorting out process to identify the tasks that are truly important?

Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who studied the distribution of wealth in a variety of countries during the 1890s. He discovered a common phenomenon: a consistent minority — about 20% of the people — controlled about 80% of the wealth in most countries. Pareto called this discovery a "predictable imbalance." His observation eventually became known as either the "80:20 rule" or "Pareto's Principle."

The 80:20 rule has been widely applied since it was first used as an economic behavior tool. While one might quibble about the 80% or 20%, the insight has been affirmed in studies of leadership and management. The "80:20 rule" has become a very effective personal growth tool, reflecting the notion that a predictable imbalance exists in the impact of our tasks.

Stated another way: 80% of the achievements that are accomplished each day account for 20% of our activities.

This 80:20 observation is found in almost every aspect of modern life, from stock investing to golf winnings. The highly effective people are experts at finding the highly leveraged 20% activities and pouring all their energy into these highly productive tasks. Become fanatical about your 20%. How then, do we identify those precious 20% tasks?

First the mind dump

Several years ago, I was introduced to an extraordinarily useful process for all kinds of mental tasks . . . everything from creative idea generation to project planning; it is called a Mind Dump. Mind dumping is a tool that you can use to begin the process of sorting through the quagmire of all of your responsibilities.

Let's try one. Take out an unlined 8.5" x 11" piece of blank white paper. If you have brightly colored felt tip pens, use them, otherwise a pencil or a pen. In big bold letters write the words "MIND DUMP."

Now get out all of your scraps of paper, to-do lists, post-it notes, lists on the refrigerator, etc. On the mind dump sheet of paper, write down every activity, task, to-do, errand, or responsibility you can think of. If you could freeze the clock for one day, what is it you would get done? Make sure you have everything, even the smallest of tasks. Just keep pen moving until you have completely emptied your mind of every possible task . . . you must get them out of the mind and onto the paper.

The #1 secret of highly productive people

Congratulations, you have just completed the single most important secret of highly productive people. The predictable imbalance . . . identifying the minority of your activities that will produce the majority of your results.

I believe this process is so important that, if you decided to end this course right here and make this technique part of your morning routine, you will be ahead of the game. By integrating it, you will see massive changes in your performance and lasting significant changes in your life balance . . . and in time and wealth as well.

The critical importance of making it a daily morning habit cannot be stressed enough. It will only become a "Habit" when you religiously perform it every day for 21 straight days. Yes, including Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays.

At first, this new morning routine may seem cumbersome and time-consuming. You will often observe your self-talk saying something like: "Oh, just skip it for today, you've got too many important things to do with this prioritizing time". You must ignore the little devil sitting on your shoulder that whispers in your ear: he is trying to lead you astray and back to your old unbalanced life style. Commit to yourself that you are going to stop walking into the propeller each morning, as a life strategy. It has outlived its usefulness.

Remember to manage yourself, not your time. Never work on a "B" until all of the "A"s are completed. If you find yourself saying, "but they are all "A"s, you simply are not spending enough time thinking about the items on your list. Nobody is that important. Take some time off: you are taking yourself much too seriously. You're going to spend the time doing something, why not make it choice rather than chance? It's up to you!

Done with your "As"?

Next, go to your "B"s and do the same routine that you just completed with the "A"s. This time, reward yourself with some fun "B"s at the top of the "B" list.

There are some more important lessons to be learned about effectively utilizing this principal. Never work on a "B" item, no matter how noisy it is becoming, until you have completed all of your "A" activities for the day. If you never get to the "B"s, so what? They simply are not important. That does not mean that today's uncompleted "B" can't become tomorrows "A".

But, "B" can remain on your list for weeks, although you must begin to question a "B" that remains for more than a couple of days. If you are honest with yourself, it can most likely be eliminated without serious consequences.

Don't put out more tomato plants than you can carry water to.

Tomato plants are easier to sow than tend. Besides watering the plants, there are tasks such as weeding, snipping off the suckers and collecting the harvest.

Last spring, a neighbor actually planted 500 tomato plants. Of course, they got away from her and she ended up with a bumper crop of weeds, a meager batch of tomatoes, and an I-told-you-so remark or two from her family.

Busy people love planting. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard: they get no kick out of watering, clipping off suckers, or weeding the garden—they prefer to put out more new tomato plants!

Will you win an award for all the weeds being pulled? Not likely. The applause comes from new programs we've launched or "new initiatives" we've introduced.

Thus, many successful people become innovation junkies. If planting tomatoes is what gets the most credit, then tomato planting is what we do. The problem: with all the focus on planting new plants, and the energy invested in expansion, sooner or later the maintenance infrastructures start to break down. Eventually, even the harvest is threatened, as well as the individual.

So what's the lesson? Be mindful of the harvest . . . not the number of plants.