Productivity tip: Throw away something on your To-Do list.

November 19th, 2008

A step-by-step approach:

  1. Look over your To-Do List.
  2. Think of the items there in terms of (a) return on time and effort, (b) potential strategic importance, (c) the joy they will bring you, (d) the trouble you’ll get in if you don’t do them, or (e) other metrics of your choice.
  3. Take a moment to ponder the finitude of life, and the related fact that we’ll NEVER get to everything we’d ideally do.
  4. Take the lowest-scoring item on your To-Do List and mark it off.
  5. Never think of it again.
  6. Move on to the most important item on your list.

Life is short, and so is the workweek — spend them doing the best things available.

~

Image by Auntie K, used under a CC-Share Alike license.
Category: Productivity

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7 Comments so far

Devin @ CoolProducts November 19th, 2008 2:57 pm

I never thought of throwing away items off of my to-do list, but this post puts things into perspective for me. Good idea, thanks Tim.

creative tension « Levite Chronicles November 19th, 2008 9:13 pm

[...] Sometimes we have to bring the tension down. Tim Walker talks about throwing away times from your to-do list. [...]

Brenda Clark November 20th, 2008 9:34 am

Excellent idea. Now if I have more than one to-do list, maybe I can toss a whole list…

Ian November 20th, 2008 9:59 am

Funny, but true. Good idea to remove the least important item. Now, would you say to do this once per week, once per day, or once each time you go to cross something off the list?

Tim Walker November 20th, 2008 1:56 pm

Brenda — I endorse tossing whole lists! See my most recent post (on Yes/No parsing) for more thoughts on how to make the call on what to toss:

http://is.gd/8kJT

Ian — I would do this at every turn. I’m a sucker for list-making, and I find that I virtually always have more listed than I could EVER do. So it’s toss-toss-toss. I’m hoping to reach the point where all I have left is the stuff that really MUST get done . . . but I’ll let you know how that goes.

William James on uncompleted tasks. -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone December 30th, 2008 6:11 am

[...] you could even throw some things away off your to-do list, without doing them at all. If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to accumulate an [...]

Rebuild your to-do list from the ground up. -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone March 26th, 2009 3:53 pm

[...] Toss something off the list. [...]

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