Of course, you want to feel productive at the end of your day!
Do you consistently check off all the items on your to-do list?
Or, do you find yourself reaching the end of each day feeling overwhelmed with all that you didn’t finish?
You still need to get each item done, but the amount of time and energy you have in one day is limited.
So how can you stop feeling overwhelmed, conquer your to-do list once and for all, and feel productive?
How can you end each day feeling satisfied with the work that you did and feel on track for tomorrow?
Besides choosing one place to keep your to-do list, like Asana or Evernote, there are a handful of actions that many entrepreneurs forget to take that lead them to feeling constantly at the mercy of their to-do lists.
5 Steps to Finally Conquer Your To-Do List and Feel Productive
1. Choose the ONE thing that is going to move your business forward
It is my experience that many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed simply because they feel like they have to do everything themselves while also experimenting with new tactics.
Getting caught up in busy work is often more comfortable than identifying priorities and implementing the tasks that will make the most impact.
So, here’s the question you want to ask yourself. Are the tasks on my to-do list moving my business forward, or are they keeping me in the same place?
If it’s the latter, those tasks should be systematized or delegated to a team member.
When you choose one thing each day that is going to move your business forward, you can stop the feeling of never accomplishing enough and start feeling focused and productive.
2. Carve out time for rest
When it’s crunch time, rest is often one of the first things that entrepreneurs decide can wait.
It may be a hard pill to swallow, but more time doesn’t just appear. You create it and studies have shown that actually more rest leads to increased productivity.
Go for a walk, work out, take a nap, or treat yourself to a healthy pick-me-up.
When you carve out time for rest, you can return to work re-energized and with a clearer mind.
3. Pick a place to keep your ideas
Ideas have a habit of popping up in the most inconvenient of times. It can happen when you’re writing your book, creating a course, or have a full docket of clients.
While these ideas could help grow your business, they aren’t always critical in the moment and are often the culprit of stealing your time, distracting you and expanding your to-do list.
This doesn’t mean that you can never try new things, but it does mean that you may need to save them for a better time.
You can do this by creating a “someday maybe” list in a tool like Evernote where you store all of the new ideas and strategies you want to try.
Return to this list when you have time and experiment with some of the items that were of interest to you a few months ago, They may prove to be the ideal candidate for a new campaign.
By letting good ideas sit, you protect yourself from shiny-new-object syndrome and ensure that the most important tasks are on your to-do list.
4. Practice saying no
When you’re trying to build a business, it’s difficult to decide what opportunities are going to help you grow and which are going to drain you.
Imagine, you’re in the midst of creating a new course that’s demanding all of your energy and you get an email to write a guest post for a popular blog. It can feel like a “yes” is the only reasonable answer.
Before you say yes and risk spreading yourself too thin, remember that the time you have in a day IS limited. You have to choose wisely!
This doesn’t always mean that you have to tell them no and never be able to write for them, again. It does mean that you need to be realistic about your time constraints versus the ones that can wait until later.
Saying no does not always have to be a rejection. It can also be a “maybe in two months” or “not on those terms.”
When you say no more often, you take control of your day and lessen the chances of being sideswiped by everyone else’s demands.
5. Stop keeping mental to-do’s
Have you ever been in the middle of writing a blog post when you suddenly remember that you have to message your graphic designer? Instead of making an actual note in a tool like Asana, you leave it as a “mental note”.
While making mental notes can feel easier in the moment, they actually add strain and steal energy because they resurface at the most inconvenient of times.
While stopping to write down every task you think may not feel very convenient, building this small habit will save you from letting important tasks fall through the cracks and spotlight you as a professional.
By using an app or something that you can always carry around with you so your to-do list stays in one, easy-to-find place, you can make the process more convenient
You now have a system that ensures every task on your list will be accomplished just by building a habit of writing down your to-do’s.
It’s Not About Willpower
I encourage you to turn your back on the popular notion that if you only had more willpower, you could finish your to-do list every day.
Accomplishing your to-do list has very little to do with willpower and a lot more to do with careful planning and clarity. You have everything it takes to feel productive at the end of each day so focus instead on knowing the priorities in your business.
Back to You
You can feel productive every day! What action are you ready to start taking to conquer your to-do list once and for all?
