Turn your to-do lists into action plans and achieve great results
Whether we love them or hate them to-do lists are great little helpers.
I imagine they look like tiny, annoying creatures. If you ignore them - they’ll chase you, like mosquitos.
But sometimes they purr, like cats, and help you organise your life and defend you from the insatiable appetite of everyday chaos. Nom-nom.
In theory, to-do lists are simple - you write down things you need to do and you do those things.
But to-do lists on their own are ineffective because they encapsulate facts.
You need more than that to ignite your fire and decide to conquer the world. At least you need to know how long something might take.
Picture this: you wake up early in the morning and diligently write your to-do list for that day. Feeling happy with your organised self, you hum your way to the bathroom, breakfast, work… wait a minute! “What was that thing I needed to do? Where is that list I wrote?” Oh! It’s still on your bed side table, isn’t it?
You wrote it and…you forgot it! Because you need to want to remember those boring things from the list. But what if they are super boring?
So, shall we stop writing to-do lists altogether? If they are so boring and easy to forget?
Don’t bin that list. Yet.
Instead, I suggest we “pimp” our to-do list - give it some useful weapons. Because on their own, to-do lists are defenceless against forgetfulness and life in general.
What are those magical weapons? Time and availability.
Or in simple words we need to turn a to-do list into a consistent action plan by adding how long something might take and whether we have time for it or not.
For example, let’s say you wrote this list:
Buy groceries
Call mum to discuss Sunday dinner arrangements
Book kids’ holiday clubs
Now let’s guesstimate how long these three items might take you. Half an hour? Let’s turn them into actions and see.
Buy groceries:
Decide what to cook
Write down ingredients needed
Go to the shop
Buy all the items
Total - 30-45 minutes.
30 minutes to complete one easy task!
Dial mum - 5 seconds
Listen to all the news and gossip - 45 minutes to 1 hour 🙀
Attempt to say bye - 30 minutes
Total time: hours
3. Book kid’s holiday club
Research clubs
Email selected clubs
Discuss price range with your other half
Total time - a lot!
And looking at those simple tasks when they are time-bound actions - they don’t look that simple anymore, do they?
Now that you’ve created an action plan for each item you might want to prioritise them. Or delegate (buying food, for instance). You might simplify some (texting mum instead of calling). Booking club might require a separate plan of attack. Sorry.
Hence, it’s important to always turn every to-do list item into an action plan so you don’t stress yourself out when you run out of time and cannot achieve items that looked so deceptively simple.
Also, action plans are good helpers when you need to motivate yourself to complete something big. By turning to-do lists into action plans you would break a mammoth task down into smaller pieces and then start working on it - one tiny list item at a time.
For bigger future plans I’d recommend you read about WOOP model I wrote some time ago. It helps you to separate dreams from actions and see them all for what they are - steps towards something that come with wishful thinking and obstacles.
Final Thoughts on Unlocking Superpowers: How Action Plans Save the Day
I hope I have proven to you how important it is to turn every to-do list item into a simple, actionable plan.
It's also easier to have an action plan rather than myriads of to-do lists that do not mean much to you. To-do lists are as good as useless if you cannot imagine how long they would take, and whether they are doable at all.
And it won't take that long to slot each action plan into your day.
Have fun conquering that chaos!
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