5 Simple Steps To Improve Your To-Do List

Last week on my insta stories I shared how I stay organised. And since so many of you sent me DMs wanting to know more, I thought I’d talk about it here on the blog!

In this blog post, I’m going to be sharing the process I use to organise my time. Which is basically just the process I use to get all of my jumbled thoughts and ideas out of my brain and into my calendar.

I’ve loved planning since I was a child (who knows what I even had to plan back then!) but always struggled to follow through. I abandoned planners as often as I got them and I found that I began to plan less and less of my life as my fear of disappointing myself grew.

Making better plans has been a huge learning process.

The first step was identifying and letting go of the beliefs that were stopping me from following through with my plans.

It took me a LONG time to gain the self-awareness that allowed me to see that the reason I wasn’t following through with plans wasn’t because I ‘forgot’ about them. It was because I was trying to avoid the shame I would feel if I followed my plan and didn’t get the desired result.

Once I figured out how to attach my self-worth to effort rather than results, I was able to make a lot of progress. And thanks to the planning advice I’ve received from Brooke Castillo via her beautiful podcast and online program, I’ve been able to follow through like never before.

Of course, it’s all still a work in progress but I have no doubt it’ll still be helpful for me to share what I’ve learned so far.

To keep things simple, I won’t be talking about the beliefs that were stopping me from following through with my plans in this blog post. But if you’d like to know more about that make sure you take a look at my online course Get Out Of Your Own Way. There are also lots of blog posts I could point you to but I share the best of the best in my course and it’s the quickest way to get results (plus it’s super affordable too).

So without further ado, let’s get into the planning!

STEP 1. GET EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR BRAIN

I personally find that the most effective ways to start getting organised is to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper. It forces me to make things a little more linear and to take a look at everything that’s going on.

I usually do my braindumps with pen and paper but when it comes to planning, I do my braindumps in Google Docs.

I’ve found that as much as a I love using a paper planner, Google Docs is the easiest way to create plans I can stick to – there’s plenty of space for detail and I can easily move things around when life comes up!

So the very first step is simply opening a Google Doc and using bullet points to get all the tasks I need to do into the document. I don’t try to put any order to them or judge whether or not I should do them. All I do is get everything out of my head and into the document, in the order it presents itself.

And I do this until I exhaust every to-do item I have been carrying around in my brain and feel as though there’s nothing I’ve been wanting to do that isn’t in that document.

I’ve created a free Google Docs template that you can use to do all of the planning I talk about in this blog post. You can get it for by clicking here.

STEP 2. CREATE A RESULTS LIST

To-do lists are naturally focused on action – the things you’re going to do. But one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned when it comes to planning is to have my productivity focused around results rather than action.

I find that without specific and clear results to work towards, I take a lot of action that makes me feel productive but needn’t even be done. And while I feel productive and accomplished in the short-term, filling my days with busy work only leads to stagnation and dissatisfaction in the long-term.

The purpose of productivity isn’t to be busy but to actually produce the results you want to produce. So at this point, I leave my braindump (from Step 1) behind and go to the next page in the Google Docs template. I then begin to create a list of the results I want to achieve.

To make this more clear, I’ll share a couple of real examples from the plan I created last week. Here they are:

  • 5 student testimonials on the sales page for Get Out Of Your Own Way (GOOYOW)
  • Smart Twenties is a systemised business – a skilled outsider could perform all required tasks without verbal direction

Many of the actions I wrote down in my braindump related to those results. But without having clearly defined actions to work towards, it’s likely that even if I got my to-do list done I still wouldn’t be where I wanted to be.

So go ahead and begin to write out the results you want to achieve. They don’t have to be business related like mine are, this process works for planning any area of your life!

Once you’ve finished listing out all the results you want to achieve (which you can always add to later, if needed) it’s time to prioritise your results.

The challenging part of planning is facing the reality that there are time constraints to deal with and it’s likely that you won’t be able to get everything done in the timeframe you’d like. A good planner knows that it’s ok to let some things wait. Have a look over your results and put them in the order you want to achieve them.

Remind yourself that trying to do everything at once means you will be too overwhelmed to get everything done. The quickest way to succeed is to do tasks one at a time. And to do that, you need to decide on which order you’ll do them in. So do that now.

STEP 3. IDENTIFY THE ACTIONS YOU NEED TO TAKE

So far you will have a long list of all the things you have to do and you will have a list of the results you want to achieve, in the order you’re going to set about achieving them. And now it’s time to match them!

But instead of going back to your braindump and grouping all of those actions together by result, it’s much better to look at each result and create a fresh list of all the actions you will need to take in order to achieve each result.

I don’t recommend you go back to your braindump because there will be a lot of tasks in that list that are only there because you feel like you ‘should’ do them or because of FOMO or because you’ve been feeling guilty about not doing them yet but they don’t actually need to be done.

I’m giving you permission to leave all of those tasks behind. They’re out of your head, don’t let them go back in.

Ok, so when you’re writing out all the actions you’ll need to take to get each result, you will need to write out ALL the actions. Every little step. The level of detail you need to include in this step is obnoxious but completely game changing.

To make this a little clearer, I’m going to keep going with my real life examples. Here are the actions that I will need to take to have 5 testimonials on the sales page for GOOYOW:

  • Review inbox and group all GOOYOW-related emails into a folder called ‘GOOYOW’
  • Review all emails in GOOYOW folder for feedback and highlight emails from students
  • Create email template asking for permission to use feedback on sales page
  • Reply to all successful students using email template as basis
  • Create a Google Doc with the email addresses of everyone emailed
  • Keep track of who has replied on Google Docs
  • Add all received testimonials to sales page
  • 7 days after emailing, send a follow up email to all students who have not yet replied
  • Create simple questionnaire for GOOYOW students asking for feedback on their experience with the course and permission to use feedback
  • Create email template about questionnaire for GOOYOW
  • Send questionnaire to all GOOYOW students who I did not email previously using email template as basis
  • Review all questionnaire answers for feedback
  • Add all received testimonials to sales page
  • Repeat until 5 testimonials are on the sales page

Told you the level of detail you need to have is obnoxious! But it’s the secret to great planning. Without a super, super, super clear list of actions to take, it’s crazy hard to follow through.

Creating a clear list of actions means doing all the thinking now instead of later. Which is why this process is tedious why you’re going through it (not gonna lie!) but will have you in complete clarity while you’re getting shit done.

You’re doing the hard work up front so you don’t have to do it later!

So go ahead and create an action list under each result in your Google Doc. Yes, your Google Doc will start to get long but it’s ok – it’ll be easy to manage by the end of this process!

Also, another reason that I love this process is because writing the action list is so tedious that you won’t want to do it for some of the results you’d written down. In which case, you know that the result isn’t important enough to you and you can delete it from your list – byeeee! My favourite way to get shit done is to remove the need to do it.

Helpful tip: If you find yourself writing the same email more than once a week, create a template in gmail. This saves me so much time and doesn’t have a negative impact on the person receiving the email, since I would be writing the same thing anyway. Here’s an article on how to set it up.

STEP 4. CREATE A TIME LIMIT FOR EACH TASK

Ok, we’re really getting down into the nitty gritty now. And you can probably see why most plans get abandoned – they have to be super, super specific if they’re going to be easy to follow!

So in your Google Doc you have all of the results you want to achieve (in the order you want to achieve them) as well as all of the actions you will need to take to achieve each result. And now it’s time to work towards putting them in your calendar.

Why is it important to put your to-do list in your calendar? Because it’s the easiest way to create clarity and reduce overwhelm, which will help you get WAY more done.

It’s also important because most of us are guilty of putting way too much on our to-do lists. When you’re working from a long to-do list it’s easy to feel like you don’t have enough time to get everything done. And when you feel like you don’t have enough time to get everything done you probably procrastinate and get nothing done. I know it’s not logical but it’s what we do!

If you can go the extra mile and put your to-do list in your calendar, you’ll never feel overwhelmed by your to-do list. It’s bliss. I do need to warn you though – it is likely that everything won’t fit in your calendar. But remember, a good planner knows that some things will just have to wait.

In the final stage of the process (Step 5) you’ll be putting your to-do list in your calendar but first you’ll need to create a time allowance for each task.

And at this, your brain is going to cry out in protest. You don’t know how long everything will take! Girl, I get it! I don’t know how long everything takes either. But this step isn’t about estimating how long things will take so much as it is giving yourself an amount of time in which you have to get things done.

To make this a little more clear, I’ll keep going with my real life example. Here is the list I created in Step 3 and I’ve added a time limit in brackets next to each task.

  • Review inbox and group all GOOYOW-related emails into a folder called ‘GOOYOW’ (30 mins)
  • Review all emails in GOOYOW folder for feedback and highlight emails from students (30 mins)
  • Create email template asking for permission to use feedback (15 mins)
  • Reply to all students using email template as basis (30 mins)
  • Create a Google Doc with the email addresses of everyone emailed (15 mins)
  • Keep track of who has replied on Google Docs (3 mins)
  • Add all received testimonials to sales page (30 mins)
  • 7 days after emailing, send a follow up email to all students who have not yet replied (30 mins)
  • Create simple questionnaire for GOOYOW students asking for feedback on their experience with the course and permission to use feedback as testimonial (this is to be sent to people who I haven’t contacted previously) (30 mins)
  • Create email template about questionnaire for GOOYOW (15 mins)
  • Send questionnaire to all GOOYOW students who I did not email previously using email template as basis (30 mins)
  • Review all questionnaire answers for feedback (30 mins)
  • Add all received testimonials to sales page (30 mins)
  • Repeat until 5 testimonials are on the sales page

There are a few things I’d like to point out.

The first is that these time limits are all made up – I haven’t done many of these tasks before. But, I know that to plan I need to at least give myself a time to work towards. So I set a time limit and know I will be working my best to get it all done in the time allotted (which means no checking instagram and no trips to the fridge).

The second is that this list will be going into my calendar and I will need to space out all of the tasks accordingly. For example, the task to follow up people who have not replied will be in my calendar 7 days from the day I sent the email. Obvious, I know, but just had to say it.

The third is that once you have a list like this, with time limits, you will likely feel quite overwhelmed and like there’s ‘not enough time’. And that’s because, quite literally, there won’t be enough time to get everything done in the time you have. But remember, a good planner knows that some things will just have to wait.

So go ahead and write down your time limits next to each task. You want to have this as the amount of time it would take to finish each task while working with focus but without stress. In the beginning, it’s best to give yourself a little more time than you think you’ll need – just while you’re changing your working habits and getting used to the idea that you can produce a lot more in the time you have.

STEP 5. PUT EVERYTHING INTO YOUR CALENDAR

This is the hardest step but also the most powerful! Putting everything into your calendar will force you to truly prioritise your goals (because it’s completely unavoidable) and once it’s done, you’ll be more productive than ever!

I recommend using either iCal (if you have a Mac) or Google Calendar (if you don’t). First, you’ll need to fill in all of your other commitments and I also recommend creating bookends for the day by deciding ahead of time what time you will wake up and what time you will go to sleep.

Then, go back to your list from Step 4 and add things to your calendar! Remember to give yourself plenty of downtime (a lesson that took me YEARS to learn) and keep track of what’s in your calendar by highlighting each task in your Google Doc.

This last step is the most challenging, so I recommend watching the video I created that will take you through the process! You can click here to watch the video for free!

And if you haven’t got access to my Google Docs template, click here to get it.

I hope you’ve found this blog post helpful and if you have any questions about this process, please let me know in the comments!

Sam xx

Author: Sam Brown

  • I love the idea of creating a results list ! I was becoming too focused on tasks and “to-do” and ended up resenting my list haha

    On weekends, I’ll add things like spending time with my hubby or pamper time on my list to make sure that my brain starts perceiving as something TO DO !

    Seppy | http://www.elleisforlove.com

  • Loved this Sam! I’m going to apply this to work this week, my manager is away for three weeks so I’ve to take up some of his responsibilities and I already feel overwhelmed!! I think this will will help a lot! xx

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