Take Control of Your To-Do List

"A man must be master of his hours and days, not their servant" - William Frederick book 

With New Year's resolutions in full effect, and hopefully still being worked toward achieving, this tip from the Harvard Business Review is a perfect fit. Many people resolve to get organized and manage their time better and these tips can help you actually achieve that. 

Take Control of Your To-Do List

Having an unruly to-do list can be overwhelming. If you find yourself rushing around, but not actually getting anything done, try the following process: Write it all down. Put everything on one list. Determine which tasks are easy and which are more difficult. Do some easy things. Spend 15 minutes doing the easy tasks. Focus on speed: make the quick phone calls, shoot off the brief emails. Cross as many tasks off the list as you can. Turn to a bigger task. Turn off your phone, close all the open windows on your computer, and focus on one of the more challenging tasks. Do this for 35 minutes without distraction. Take a break. After 35 minutes, take a 10-minute break. Then return to step two.

If you do any research on time management you'll find a wide variety of methods to make the best use of your time. I've read about methods that suggest spending anywhere from 1-2 hours focusing on the biggest project you have for the day first thing when you get in. Close your door, don't interact, and knock off a chunk of that big project. 

On the flip side, this HBR tip says to focus time on the small, easy tasks first so you can knock them off quickly and feel like you've made great progress and achieved quite a bit. And then focus a small chunk of time on a bigger project. 

Two things that remain constant across the time management methods are: 1) write everything down and 2) divide your day into working segments (times vary) and take a short break in between each segment. 

Taking 15 minutes before you head out for the night to plan your next day helps you to organize your thoughts and form a plan on what you're going to do. When you come in that next morning all you have to do is review your plan and get after it. 

Taking breaks between work segments helps you to remain fresh. You may think that hammering through your work for 4 straight hours is more beneficial than working for 50 minutes and then taking a 10 minute break (and repeating 4 times), but you will actually accomplish more by working less due to the mental break. Your mind will come back after those 10 minutes refreshed and ready to go. If you go straight through for those 4 hours you will hit a point where you lose motivation or feel as if you're in a fog due to your brain being mentally exhausted. 

Every job is different and the amount of control you actually have over your day is different than others, but you have to find what works best for you to make the most out of your time spent working. Would you rather get the same amount of work done in 50 hours or in 42 hours each week?