Do you struggle to get through your to-do list? Is your to-do list getting longer every day? Do you dream of ticking off your to-do list every day or even every week?
Starting Fresh
It’s Monday morning (or Sunday night for some people). You want to prepare for the week ahead. Check out my previous blog on planning. Get a pen and paper and start writing your to-do list. Have you ever heard of ‘eat the frog’? Google it – it’s a way to get that niggling job on your to-do list done, the one that keeps getting written day after day because you’d rather get on with something else than tackle the frog. Well put the frog at the top of the list – how good will you feel with you’ve eaten the frog and completed that task.
Write down everything that is in your head (keeping you awake), everything that’s on your task list, phone calls, e-mail reminders, ordering you have to do. Once it’s on a piece of paper you no longer have to use brain space for it. Then you can prioritise your list. The next thing you need to do is calendar block some time during the week to do these jobs.
One little cheats tip I use; put some jobs on there that are easy wins so you at least will tick some jobs off your list. For example when I write my house cleaning to do list (as I love a good list), I put hoover upstairs, hoover downstairs, dust upstairs, dust downstairs! That way I can tick off a few items once done and it gives me great satisfaction.
No time to get through the to-do list jobs
You now have your list. Are there tasks on this list that you could simply hand to someone else to do? Who could you hand them to as you don’t have anyone available? But you do, you can employ a Virtual Assistant to pick up these tasks on an ad-hoc or regular basis. Virtual Assistants are experienced at picking up administration tasks for people to lighten their load. You may have to put a newsletter together, prepare a mail merge, attend a meeting and do the minutes, input some data. Your mailbox is full of junk and you would like to declutter it, unsubscribe to those e-mails that you never read. Maybe you need help scheduling meetings with multiple people. These are all jobs you can hand over to a Virtual Assistant to do.
You simply hand over any instructions, sort out access, usually GDrive or Drop box are used and they can then get on with some of your tasks on your to do list. Have a think what is on your list now that you could get help with.
Technology which can help you get through your to-do list
There are also many apps you can use to help with to-do lists and get you organised. Maybe you remember things when you are out and about and you don’t want to forget them. On Apple, for example, I ask Siri to add a reminder for me at a specific time and she does it and will remind you about it at a specific time and it gets put in my ‘reminders’ appl
Todoist is an app and website where you can write your to do list. You can add items, set reminders and delegate tasks.
Trello is another great place where you can add things either on the website or an app, it’s basically a very visual piece of software and very similar to using post it notes. You can share a Trello board with an individual or a team, tag them in tasks, set completion dates, add attachments. It’s a very handy tool.
What to do next…
If you are getting overwhelmed with your to-do list, I’d love to have a chat to see if I can take anything off your plate. Book a discovery call here or drop me an e-mail at tamsin@tjva.co.uk. Go over to my services page to see if there is anything listed there that I can help with.
