Top Ten Ways to Tackle Your Daily To-Do List

Do you feel the same disappointment at the end of each week, when you look at your planned to-do list?  Do you find that you manage to accomplish the same things each month? Have you continued to put off others because they are less urgent?  I do a great job sticking to a bi-weekly cleaning schedule and planning and preparing for the week’s meals. I also get outside regularly for walks. These have become habitual and I don’t even think about how to get them done.  Where I often procrastinate is with the other tasks that don’t “need” to get done. Tasks like daily reading and writing, contacting friends, or shopping for things that I need are harder for me. How can you take the time to achieve all the things that are important to you for greater balance? How can you tackle your daily to-do list?

1. Start with a Big-Picture Plan

Decide what tasks you want to accomplish that year.  Dream big, and bold.  Do not limit yourself at this stage.  Next, break these tasks or actionable steps into quarters.  Once you have your plan for each quarter of the year, you can break it down further by month. Then plan a schedule by week, so that you have a breakdown of when you intend to complete your tasks.  This stage is critical to take those broad ideas and narrow them down to achievable goals.  This could apply to any type of goal, whether it be writing, weight loss, social plans, house goals, or decluttering.  

When you develop this big-picture plan, make it visual. This way you can come back to it to measure your progress.  This could be in the form of a vision board that you then transfer to a list.  At the end of each month, come back to this master list to see how much you accomplished from it.  Any planning system will work, as long as you use it consistently.  Using a calendar with larger squares works well, or any type of planner/organizer that you find easy to use.  I prefer paper copies of my plans, but many people have great success using electronic versions as well. 

2. Tackle Your Daily To-Do List: Create a Block Schedule for the Week

Once you have decided what you can reasonably accomplish, make your weekly plan as specific as possible.  Divide the day into blocks in your planner.  Morning, afternoon, after work, early evening, and late evening.  Factor in driving time, household chores, appointments, and family obligations. Determine how many hours you have to complete your key tasks for each day. Decide what time of day you will schedule them. Also, decide how long you can spend on each one.  

For example, my key task may be to go on an outdoor walk for 45 minutes. Then, read 50 pages of my novel, and declutter one space. I will determine the best time of day that is conducive to accomplishing each goal.  For me, the walk would get done right after work and before dinner.  The decluttering could be divided into two 30-minute blocks, or it could be a full hour.   The reading would happen at the end of the evening, just before bed.  Visit the post Ten Ways to Keep Realistic New Year’s Resolutions for more information on developing an effective schedule.

3. Focus on Three Key Results Each Day to Tackle Your Daily To-Do List

The main reason why we fail to achieve our goals is that we schedule too many things in a day.  We don’t account for the amount of time it might take to transition from one activity to the next. It is best to stick to three main tasks that you will feel good about accomplishing.  If all else fails, you are making a promise to yourself that you will at least do those three things.   You need to write down the amount of time that you will spend on each. You need to know what time of day you will complete them.  I often avoid doing a task if I don’t have time to finish it completely.  Why start a blog post if I will only have time to write for 30 minutes? I won’t finish it.  Why start decluttering a room if I know it will take several hours?   

I need to let go of the idea that the task must be finished completely. Instead, look at it as time spent working towards that completion.  Small chunks of time committed to the task will yield better results in the long run. Otherwise, I may avoid it altogether or put it off for a day with more time, which may never happen. Shifting my attitude in this way is necessary to build on the momentum of achieving small chunks of the goal. I should celebrate the time I spent on it, rather than waiting for the perfect time to achieve all of it.  I need to set timers and remind myself that I said I would spend 45 minutes on this day. Even though the task will take much longer to complete, that is not a reason to avoid starting.

4. Audit Your Time to See Where It’s Going

Everyone who is human is guilty of procrastinating at times unless they have discipline and commitment of steel.   Most of us find it all too easy to waste time on the couch. We can justify it in any number of ways.  We had a long day, we don’t have a lot of energy, or we deserve to relax.  While this may be true, find out how much time these excuses are taking out of your life each week.  Audit your time by keeping track of every moment of the day for one week. This will give you a sense of what your patterns are. Keep a running log (perhaps on your phone) of each task or activity you complete. This would include mundane tasks like driving, preparing meals, and doing chores. Also, getting yourself ready, or time spent sitting on the couch and scrolling the internet.  

How much time should you have in a day to get your key three done?  How much time are you ending up with?   The screen time feature on your phone is also a great tool to use. You can see exactly how much time is spent on each app at the end of every day.   Take the time to keep a running record of your day for a one-week period. Then decide how you will create more time in your schedule to tackle your daily to-do list. What can you reduce in order to make time for what’s truly important to you? 

5. Promise Yourself You Won’t Check Your Phone Until Your Task Has Been Completed

This next tip to help tackle your daily to-do list connects to the previous idea of auditing your time.   Most of us are well aware that our phones are the single biggest distraction on the planet. This is especially true of social media and addictive games.  How can we keep them at bay when we may need them to do some of our tasks? We use phones to set alarms, listen to music, search for things we want to order, or use tracking apps.   We also need them to communicate with our family members.  It’s easy to make every argument in the world as to why we need them. Yet we know that the temptation of picking them up is too strong.  Nothing else we do can seem to compete with this addictive pull.   

When I have set an alarm to complete a task, it becomes a matter of discipline.  I need to promise myself that I won’t check my phone until the task is complete.  I can keep it within earshot in case it’s my child connecting about a ride or something she needs. Yet I don’t need to keep it within reach or even in the same room.   Responding to a notification is one thing. It’s the many random times that we pick it up out of habit that we want to avoid. 

6. Ask Yourself Why Accomplishing This Task is Important to You

When a task has been on my list for years, I need to ask myself why it is still there.   Typically they might be tasks that are important to me for nostalgic reasons. This may be completing my kids’ baby books so they can have them to look back on someday.  Or organizing all my photos so that they are all in one place if we need to locate specific ones.  These are tasks that seem important in the long-term, for the sake of memories and tradition.  Yet there is no urgency to them in the present because too many other things are competing with our time.  Ask yourself if you absolutely want to have this done. Or, if you could live with it being partially complete, the way it is now.  Will it matter ten years from now if you’ve completed this task or not?  

 For me, yearly scrapbooks are an important way to preserve our family’s memories, for future generations as well.  I will always make time to create my scrapbooks for this reason.  Having an entire photo library organized and labeled seems like a dream. Yet, I continue to put off scheduling it month after month. How important is it really to me?  Are the baby books okay being partially complete, even if they are missing certain required pieces?  If you decide you want them to be complete, then you have to put them in the schedule; you have to work on them bit by bit.  Or maybe you modify the plan slightly.  You want to make sure all the photos are in one place in chronological order. Maybe you may let go of the need to have them all labeled. 

7. Tackle Your Daily To-Do List: Don’t Negotiate With Yourself

You have your master list, quarterly, monthly, and weekly plans all written out. You have decided what to schedule each day, so that’s it.  There is no more negotiation as to why the task should wait.  You won’t make a habit out of regular long walks if you continue to make excuses. If you tell yourself that it’s too cold, or too late, you will end up putting it off.  The goal of several walks a week to stay on track with your annual goal will not be achieved.  You will not achieve the benefits you wanted, such as improved mood, weight loss, or increased energy level.

You’ll be at the same place you were at the previous year with no progress moving forward.  There is no negotiating with your three key tasks.  They are the priority for your day.  Anything else is extra, but you can’t negotiate with your core tasks if you wish to be happy and successful.  If nothing else, keeping these promises to yourself is a sign of your discipline and mental strength.  In the grand scheme of life, it doesn’t matter if you skip your walk on any given day. However, it’s the discipline and habits that you are failing to create that will make all the difference long-term.  See The Promises we Make to Ourselves for more inspiration to tackle your daily to-do list.

8. Tackle Your Daily To-Do List: Treat Each Task Like an Appointment

Do you enjoy going to the dentist, or for your regular physical?   Do you look forward to meetings at work?   For some reason, we don’t skip out on these tasks.  We don’t make excuses, even though we don’t enjoy them. We certainly could think of better ways to spend our time.  Even if I avoid tasks, like writing, I begin to enjoy them once I get started.  I feel so proud and accomplished after I complete my word goal for the day.  It doesn’t mean I always look forward to it.  It is hard work, and it is mentally taxing.  But that’s what makes it good.  It is the achievement of hard things that gives us a sense of purpose in life.  

It would be much easier to play a game online, watch TV, or work on a puzzle. Yet the sense of accomplishment from creating something is unsurpassable.  Treat these scheduled tasks with the same attitude as an appointment that you would never dream of missing. Then you will finally begin to make progress on your big-picture goals. You will feel better about yourself and you can then enjoy the easier task, knowing that you put forth your best effort. Even though you may have approached the task without enthusiasm, you will never regret getting it done. 

9. Build in a Reward to Motivate Yourself

You have completed your key three tasks for the day. Now you must build in time to do mindless things, like scroll through social media, or play games. You might take a bath with a light read, or watch a TV show.  These are pleasurable tasks that give our brains a break. We’ve spent significant energy accomplishing tasks that are more of a challenge.  This may be the most important tip of all. Without these rewards that we are constantly turning toward, we will fall into the trap of avoiding our goals altogether.  Our key tasks should not take up all of our time when balanced against our other responsibilities. We will not be getting the downtime that we need to recharge and enjoy life.  We won’t be caring for ourselves in the way that our minds and bodies need.

Motivational guru Tony Robbins believes that “by rewarding yourself at the moment, your brain elicits positive emotions. This leads to the realization that your efforts result in a positive reward. By doing this continuously, your brain will start to link pleasure to accomplishing the task or objective and move towards it in the future” https://www.tonyrobbins.com/productivity-performance/reward-yourself/. Even a small reward is a great motivator to push yourself to tackle the next goal on your daily to-do list.

Be Strategic About Fitting Your Tasks In

 This is why it is important to schedule those three tasks, by keeping the rest of our day in mind.  If it is going to be busier on certain evenings, I will make one of the goals something simpler. Perhaps something that can be combined, such as walking while my child is at practice.  Selecting three new recipes could be a goal while I’m waiting to pick them up from an activity.  We will still be able to feel like we’ve accomplished something. We can then avoid having to complete two hours of tasks later before we can spend any time just winding down.   I never schedule tasks past 9 or 10 pm. This means I can have time to engage in a more relaxing reward before the end of the evening.

10. Assess Your Progress Each Week

We must take the time to check our progress regularly with our big-picture calendar or vision board.   We need to check off tasks in our weekly planner. Then we can go back and reflect on where we are at the current point in the year.   If we wanted to read 24 novels in the year, that would be 2 completed each month.  Say we are now four months in and haven’t completed a single book. We will find that we are not on pace to achieve this goal.  Either the goal needs to be adjusted, or we need to see where we can fit in more reading time.  I recommend doing this reflection weekly for the best results. Avoid letting too much time go by without this type of self-assessment.

Ask Yourself What You Did to Get Closer to Your Goals

By touching base with ourselves regularly we can see where we are falling short. Perhaps we can do something about it before we waste more time. I want to be a published author and a more patient parent. I want to spend more time outdoors, read more novels, lose weight, and reach out to friends regularly. What actions did I take that week that would get me closer to those goals?   Without this type of self-assessment, we will continue to fail at the development of better habits. We will continue to live our lives on auto-pilot.  It’s critical to take the time to reflect, and then push ourselves harder. Changing our habits and routines will be uncomfortable. We have to get uncomfortable for growth to occur so that we can live our best lives.