10 steps to a great to-do list

Make your to-do list achievable and challenging, but keep it realistic.

When you don’t have the opportunity to work on one thing at a time, a to-do list provides a simple but effective way to manage your work. It’s an extremely important part of working from home - you’ve got to manage your own workload.

Here are 10 ways you can create a to-do list with low effort and maximum results. Not all of these will be worth doing if you have a fairly short list of things to do. You may find that it’s worth introducing some of the tips in the future or not doing a few of the others, it really depends on how complex your list needs to be.

1. Update it regularly.

Create a Word document (or whichever word processing software you use) and use that as your master copy. Start by typing your outstanding tasks into a bulleted list. Then make sure you review it weekly, preferably first thing on a Monday morning. Remove completed tasks, add new tasks, and organise things as required.

2. Print it out.

We’re steadily progressing through the 21st century, and an enormous amount of information can be done on your computer. However, I find it very slow to review and update the to-do list on the computer unless it’s for my weekly review of the whole list.

When you’ve updated your list, save it, and print it. Then write all over it. Cross out completed items, write new items on it (preferably on the back if it’s a one-page list and you get lots of new items), and draw a star next to anything that needs urgent attention.

When you update the list each week, type in all the changes you made on paper, then recycle the old copy and print out a new copy.

If this seems like a lot of wasted paper and you don’t actually need to update the list every single week, by all means reduce the frequency with which you update and reprint the master copy.

3. Maintain a logical order.

Simple really - put the most important things at the top and the least important things at the bottom. You could also put the low effort, high benefit tasks at the very top. It’s up to you how to organise the list, but make sure you’re consistent and that it makes sense to you. After all, it’s your list.

4. Split it into categories.

Work for different clients, work for different projects, work of varying amounts of urgency and effort, things you should do in one go - you can group certain things together. Categorising the list can make it a lot more manageable if you’ve got loads of items.

5. Use tables to use up the available space.

One problem with creating a to-do list in a word processor is that you may find there’s a lot of wasted space. If this is the case and you can group certain tasks together, do so by using tables. Use columns for different tasks and you’ll find it’s a lot easier to see what’s outstanding for a particular project.

6. Use formatting sparingly.

If you must use bold, italic, underline or different colours, be consistent with your usage and don’t do it on every item. For instance, if you want to make the first part of every item bold, it may be easier to use a table.

Colours can help to determine an item’s priority, but it’s easier just to go by where the item is in the list than whether it’s a certain colour - especially if you forget to change the colour when the priority changes.

Don’t create work for yourself by using a complex formatting scheme - keep it simple.

7. Don’t use multiple files.

If you work on a lot of projects, it may be tempting to split everything into multiple files. This may be a requirement if you have to send the entire list of outstanding work to your client, but for your own purpose, don’t create a different file for each project. It’s more to update, and it’s more to forget to keep on top of. One list to rule them all!

8. Remove pending items

If you have emails going back and forth discussing requirements of an upcoming job, don’t leave a to-do item sitting on your list for that work. Otherwise, it can seem like the item’s been on your list for ages, and you may view it with a greater degree of urgency. Rushing to finish non-urgent items can seriously affect your day-to-day work, so don’t do this unless an item really is urgent.

9. Minimise the number of pages

Keeping everything in one file can make your list quite long, but it’s wise to keep your list as short as possible. Always remember to update the list regularly so you don’t have to look through the completed items to find the outstanding work. Reword tasks to fit on fewer lines. Use a smaller font. Use tables and reorganise the layout. Basically, get as much as you can onto each page and you’ll have less pieces of paper to worry about.

10. Migrate messy paper reminders into your list

Do you have loads of bits of paper all over your desk with to-do items on each one? This is an easy way to lose track of what needs to be done. Save yourself from disappearing jobs - type them into your to-do list, print out your to-do list, and throw away the other bits of paper.

Those are my tips - do you have any to add to the list? How do you manage multiple priorities?