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 Estimating time
Prioritised To Do Lists What are To Do Lists?'To Do Lists' are lists of tasks to be carried out to achieve goals. These goals might be specific targets, or may simply be the efficient administration of your day. By ordering these tasks in order of importance, you have prioritised your To Do List.Whilst To Do Lists are very simple, they are also extremely powerful, both as a method of organising yourself and as a method of reducing stress. Often problems may seem intimidatingly large or you may have a seemingly huge number of demands on your time. This may leave you with a feeling of loss of control, or of being overburdened with work, or of facing hopelessly huge obstacles. Getting Back ControlThe solution is often simple: write down the tasks that face you, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until everything that you have to do is listed. Once you have done this, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important) to F (unimportant). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important high priority items. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order. You will then have a precise, sharp plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face in the order that they need to be eliminated. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones, and gives you control of the problems facing you, reducing stress hugely.Even if the things you want to achieve do not seem overwhelming, To Do Lists are extremely useful ways or organising yourself efficiently, and of motivating yourself to achieve what needs to be achieved efficiently. Preparing To Do ListsIt is a good idea to prepare To Do Lists whenever suits you: some people recommend doing them at the end of each day for the next day, others at the beginning of a day, others whenever you feel that things are getting out of control - the important thing is that you use them in the way that suits you.If you haven't used To Do Lists before, try them: they are one of the keys to being really productive. |
