I fucking love to-do lists. Pardon my French but I really, really do. And if you do too, you may have read my post last year about 20 things everyone who love to-do lists would understand. I don’t think I’ve go a single day in the last 6 months without writing some sort of to-do list – I thrive on them and feel completely lost and unorganised if I haven’t wrote down everything I need to do. I know to some people, this would be an absolute nightmare for y’all type A personalities out there… I hear ya. I hear ya. So from one to-do lister to another, I want to share some wisdom and tips on how to make those to-do lists a little more bearable.
Make it easily accessible
Priority. If your to-do list is written in hieroglyphics, on an iPad with 14 security codes and in your bag with 7 zips and a padlock then so help you. My to-do list is on the notes on my phone and it’s always right there, ready to access whenever I need it. I’ve not bought in to all this bullet journal malarkey because I also like to keep it simple and not be distracted by what the to-do list is written on rather than the actual list itself.
Categorise
I’ve only recently (I say recently, I mean like 4 months ago) started doing this but I categorise my to-do list to break it down and make it more manageable. For example, my list contains subheadings like, ‘Blogging’, ‘Blog Tours’ and ‘Chores’. So I pop down all the blogging related things I need to do under blogging and so on and all the boring, every day jobs that need doing under chores.
Prioritise
I always, always mark the really super duper important things with a (*) so I know that those are the things that ideally, I need to do or think about doing first. Also, once these urgent matters are out of the way, you can usually relax a bit with the others, afterwards.
Include easy things
There’s nothing worse than having a ridiculously long to do list of all things that will take up an hour or so each, then by the time you’ve finished just 1, you barely feel like you’ve done anything at all. I always add really simple, easy things to my list that need doing – which I probably would have done anyway without writing them down. The act of crossing things off I think sparks more motivation to get a wriggle on a cross more off.
Include things for you
To-do lists may seem super boring and dull but not everything on them needs to be a chore or work related. Add a ‘you‘ section to your to-do list and add in a couple of things that you would like to do today for yourself. Even little things like catching up on that show you missed, walking the dog or having a cup of tea. They’re all still really nice things to add and having them on the to-do list may encourage you to take a little time for yourself during the day.