In the millions of personal development books out there, you will find many of them referencing the habit of creating To Do lists. These gurus proclaim that the list is an important tool for organized people to get an exceptionally high amount of productivity out of a day. I could not agree more.
As I have said in other posts, I know an awful lot of business owners and business managers. The most successful people that I know and the ones I admire the most are ones that use these lists. I didn’t realize it at first until after I had been in business for a while. Then one day I started realizing that some really smart people were using lists more than most people use a damn cell phone.
One guy keeps a daily To Do list on his desk like a diary. Another guy uses a cheap little notepad about half the size of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Some people who work behind a desk all day use a desk calendar. I know salesman who use a day planner. Professional women tend to use these even more than men. I guess that is why it appears that women are usually better organizers than men.
Being more organized is a really beneficial habit that you could start developing today. You won’t believe the additional mental power you discover within yourself once you start using these lists. You become far more creative and a much better problem solver. By writing everything down that you need to accomplish, you free up all that mental energy that you were using to remember what had to be done. You are basically telling your brain that it doesn’t need to remember these things anymore. That is what the list does for you. If it is on the list, you cannot forget to do it. You can choose not to do it, but you cannot forget.
Believe it or not, little details like this are what separate the average person from a person who gets things done. If you have the discipline to actually stick to a system like this, it will literally be impossible to stop you from getting a massive amount of work done each day. Your brain will love you for it and so will your bank account.
If you don’t work from a list right now, I strongly encourage you to perform this exercise. You simply won’t believe it until you try it firsthand.
Take an 8.5” x 11” spiral notebook. Use a Word processor if you want to instead. At the top of the page write the words “To Do” and make them large. Start writing down every single thing that you need to do today, tomorrow, this week, this month and this year. You don’t have to break them down by date. That is not what I mean. I just want you to write down every single thing you need to accomplish at any point in the next year. Write down everything whether business related or personal. Write down every last specific thing. Keep writing until you think you have got every last detail covered. Leave nothing off the list.
You have got to do this exercise. It doesn’t take but a few minutes and the results are simply amazing. Once that list is complete, you will feel the weight of the world come off your shoulders. All of a sudden, that huge list of tasks seems manageable. The tasks look smaller on paper and they are smaller. You have just made them smaller by writing them down. You are far more likely to accomplish them now. It is a highly motivating exercise.
Now look at your list and pick out something you can do in the next ten minutes that you could cross off that list. There has got to be something. If you will take ten minutes right now to do just one thing so you can cross it off, then this whole lesson will have been worthwhile. You will see and feel the power.
If for no other reason, you should do this task just to release the anxiety and stress that is bothering your brain because you expect it to remember everything. By writing this stuff down, you are giving your brain a spa treatment. You are giving it permission to exhale and relax for a minute. This is incredibly liberating and gives a major boost to your inherit creative problem solving skills. You will find ways of accomplishing things on that list much more efficiently with a lot less work. Somehow you will now manage to fit all that stuff into your day and get it all done.
The key is in developing a habit of using this list every single day without exception. Even on Sundays you should be using it. You don’t necessarily have to do any work on Sunday. But, you should still add whatever you need to put on that list so that you don’t forget it. Your mind will never be happier. Trust me. If you want to become super successful, I suggest you become anal about using this list. Develop your own system of what works for you and stick to it.
Some people try to use a high tech gadget to do this. I prefer the simplicity of a piece of paper and a pen. If you want to use an electronic organizer be my guest. I think it is way easier to use paper. The easier your system is, the more likely you will be to stick to it. I have never seen a millionaire use an electronic organizer. Every single one of them that I know use paper and pencil or else they have a personal assistant who uses a paper and pencil for them.
