Downsize Your To-Do List

You know you have way too many things on your to-do list. Here are some ways to down-size that list, and turn it into a powerful income generating tool at the same time:

Step One: Acknowledge that it is impossible to do it all. Decide right now that you are going to choose the Highest Leveraged Actions in the important areas of your life, and focus on doing those every day.

Step Two: Do a mind dump. Unfinished business weighs on your mind and drains your energy. Take 10 minutes and make a list of everything in your mind that needs to be done, in every area of your life, personal and professional. Just keep writing without ordering or prioritizing, until you can’t think of anything else. This is not a to-do list. This is a cleansing list. I do them periodically; just to be sure I have captured everything.

Step Three: At the end of each business day, make a down-sized to-do list of highest leveraged actions. I use a special card designed to put 5 business items on one side and 5 personal items on the other.

Highest leveraged actions for your business are the ones that will have the biggest impact. If you have way more than 5 each day and they aren’t bottom-line oriented, then you need to think about delegating.

High leveraged personal actions are just as important as the business actions. These can include things like self-care (exercise, meditation), relationship (send a card, call your spouse), creativity (write a poem), and unfinished business (see Step Four). These things get lost in a huge to-do list, and end up never being attended to.

Step Four: Address one major unfinished business item each month. Pick one item from your mind dump and put one leveraged action on your card each day until it’s done. Then pick the next project.

Step Five: “Enough” is a decision, not a thing. If you are clear on your vision, have balanced your priorities to include personal and business, and you are taking small, consistent actions each day and delegating the rest, you are doing the best you can. Act AS IF you’ve done enough, acknowledge yourself, give yourself time to rest and rejuvenate, and watch your results expand.