How to clean up and make real progress with a full to-do list …

I’m one of MANY people for whom a to-do list is a serious personal and/or professional management tool. It provides the structure and guidance we need to get things done efficiently and effectively and avoid chaos.

But if you’re like me, you’ve probably experienced those many, even routine, times when important and/or urgent matters bump an item or items on your list to a lower significance on the list, or even to the bottom of the list … and that happens over and over again for that item or items.

Soon, that bumped item has been on your to-do list, still undone, for weeks or even months.

At the end of 2023, I read several articles and saw multiple memes encouraging people to just drop those things from your to-do list as a way of uncluttering your list.

Don’t do that!

That’s because I’m writing about those things on our lists that will probably never rise to the status of urgent or important, but they’re also not unimportant. There’s enough need and value to get them done that you can’t justify taking them off your to-do list as serious items to be done; however, those important and urgent things keep bumping them to the back of the line.

That’s the problem. And if you keep doing this, you’ll never get done what should be done instead of dropped.

So, how do you make some real progress on accomplishing what’s on your list by finally getting around to these items?

Perhaps you should consider a “progress day.”

Not every day of the week, week after week, is driven by vitally important and/or urgent things you must accomplish that day. It would be possible to pick one day as a “progress day” where you designate the entire day to doing ONLY those things on your list that keep getting bumped down the line in importance so you never get to them. Don’t allow any interruptions or additions to your “to-do” actions on your progress day other than those continuously bumped items. This will give you the chance to not only finally give them real attention, but to declutter your list by accomplishing these tasks.

In fact, to help you with your ongoing management of your list, you might want to plan on at least one “to-do list progress day” every month. That will help you avoid becoming frustrated about items on your list that you never get around to, or deleting things from your list that have enough value that they should be done.

Do them!

On a “progress day.”

Scotty