Ditch the to-do list: Effective diary management tips
Are you looking to manage your time and workload better? As a business owner or CEO, it’s easy to feel swamped with everything that needs to be done… and keeping on top of your to-do list is a constant battle.
At Virtually Priceless, we’re experts in providing exceptional assistance to our clients so they get the invaluable gift of more time. So, we know what works and we’re here to help you get on top of your diary management using our simple but powerful method.
Why a to-do list might be holding you back…
To-do lists are satisfying. Ticking off your tasks can make you feel like you’re achieving something. But sometimes, that’s all it does – makes you feel good. And if you’re honest with yourself, you sometimes add things on there that you’ve already done…
On the other hand, writing a to-do list that ends up becoming a beast can be overwhelming, which has the opposite effect on your productivity. So, what’s the right balance?
The answer might sound controversial – we encourage our high-level business owners and CEO clients to ditch their to-do lists.
How do you effectively manage a to-do list?
Ok, you might be wondering how throwing your to-do list out of the window is going to help you… but hear us out. Instead of writing a never-ending to-do list, instead we urge you to prioritise your tasks and then schedule everything in your calendar.
The first step to effectively managing your overwhelming task list is by writing all your action points in a ‘brain dump’ format. Write down everything – big or small – that you usually take responsibility for in your business.
Once you’ve written everything down, you can work out which category each task falls into from these 4:
- Urgent and important
- Urgent and not important
- Not urgent and important
- Not urgent and not important
Let’s go into those categories in more detail…
1. Urgent and important tasks – get them done!
These tasks on your to-do list must be done quickly. You’re also the best person for the job because your expertise is an important factor in getting these done right. So you should add these tasks into your working schedule quickly as a priority.
2. Urgent and not important – delegate it!
This includes tasks that are time-sensitive, but it’s not something you need to take responsibility for personally. These are the tasks you should be delegating for someone else in your team to do instead of you.
3. Not urgent and important – schedule it!
You’ll have important tasks that are considered important but not urgent, such as business development activities. Often these tasks are overlooked by the urgent matters – and the lack of a solid deadline doesn’t help you to dedicate time for these things.
4. Not urgent and not important – eliminate it!
If a task isn’t urgent or important to your business growth, you’re better to remove it from your workload and to-do list completely. Remember to ask yourself why tasks are important, so you’re not spending your days completing ‘busy work’!
When you have categorised your tasks into these 4 clear quadrants, it will become clear what you should delegate, ditch, or do. When it comes to delegation, you can pass tasks on to someone on your team or delegate to a trusted virtual assistant.
Scheduling tasks to organise your overwhelming to-do list
Here’s the part where you start to take action: You need to put any important tasks into your calendar in a productive and useful way. Having an open-ended task isn’t going to help you grow your business or be more productive.
So to start scheduling your tasks into your calendar, include:
- The specific dates you will work on each task. Sometimes the best way to work this out is to go backwards from the deadline you’re working towards to make sure you have enough time to complete everything.
- The time each task will take you to complete. Break this down into smaller chunks if the overall task is a big one.
Input tasks into your digital calendar or project management tool
Even though you can apply this method to a traditional paper diary, we recommend using a digital version like Google Calendar or even your project management software so you can set repeat tasks each week.
For example, you might decide for your ‘not urgent but important’ business development tasks, you will spend every Tuesday morning working on moving this project forward. You can create an automatically recurring task, then add notes on the specific sub-tasks needed for each week.
Another great way to see where your time is going is by adopting a colour-coded system. This helps you to quickly see which tasks you’re prioritising in any given week and what you can move to another time. An example of this could be assigning any urgent tasks in your diary in red and non-urgent in green, so if something needs to be scheduled it’s easier to make the best decision.
However you prefer to input tasks into your calendar, don’t forget to add a buffer between things in case something takes you longer than expected… which it almost always does! Tracking your time is a great way to get a real insight into how long things take you, so you can plan better in the future. And remember to add in lunch breaks and time away from your screen, as they’re important to your business growth too.
Get control of your diary management with Virtually Priceless
This exercise should mean you’ve hopefully taken some tasks off your plate to give you more time for the things that will make an impact on your business growth. But it also should have made you realise just how much you can delegate and get support to complete…
At Virtually Priceless, we work with clients to clear their to-do lists, set up better systems and processes, and keep on top of their day-to-day so they can grow their business. If you want a trusted team you can rely on and become your partner for success, get in touch to discuss your needs.