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How to Complete Your To-Do List in 5 Steps

How to Complete Your To-Do List in 5 Steps March 19, 201612 Comments

Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

How to Complete Your To-Do List

How to Complete Your To-Do List in 5 Steps

We all get overwhelmed by out to-do lists every now and then.  The tasks keep piling up and there seems to be less time each day.  When this happens, I, like many others fall into the bad habit of dreading the to-do list so much that I end up spending more time thinking about all of the tasks I have to do than it would take to just do the tasks.

For this month, I’ve decided that I’m going to finish my to-do list, or get pretty close.

Step 1:  Write out tasks
Dishes
Laundry
Clean the bathroom
Vacuum Upstairs
Vacuum the Stairs
Scrub litter box
Clean kitchen counters/floors
Hose down front of house
Wash car
Fix/sand walls and corners
Repaint baseboards
Repaint sanded walls
Reconcile Bank Accounts
Sweep and Hose Garage
Dust the tops of fans
Dust low surfaces
Put away desk supplies in office
Patch holes in kitchen

Step 2: Reorganize the tasks into two columns –  One column for tasks that take under 15 minutes to complete, and one for tasks that take over 15 minutes to complete.

Tasks < 15 minutes  
Dishes
Clean the bathroom
Hose down front of house
Repaint sanded walls
Sweep and Hose Garage
Dust the tops of fans
Put away desk supplies in office
Dust low surfaces
Tasks > 15 minutes
Laundry
Scrub litter box
Vacuum the whole house
Clean kitchen counters/floors
Wash car
Fix/sand walls, corners, holes
Repaint baseboards
Reconcile Bank Accounts

Step 3:  Organize each column from most important to least important and combining similar items. 

Tasks < 15 minutes     
Dishes
Clean the bathroom
Put away desk supplies in office
Dust the tops of fans
Hose down front of house
Repaint sanded walls
Dust low surfaces
Sweep and Hose Garage
Tasks > 15 minutes
Laundry
Scrub litter box
Vacuum the Whole House
Clean kitchen counters/floors
Wash car
Fix/sand walls, corners, holes
Repaint baseboards
Reconcile Bank Accounts

Step 4: Each day, complete the top item from each column or do a few similar items (such as all painting in one day)

Ex:
Day 1: Dishes & Laundry
Day 2: Clean the bathroom and scrub the litter box
Day 3: Put away desk supplies in office & Vacuum the house

Step 5 – Be Flexible with your to-do list

There are always things that come up that either need to be added to the to-do list or can take away time from completing items on the to-do list.  The most important thing is to be flexible and willing to make adjustments to the to-do list when necessary.  If you know you won’t be able to do anything off of the to-do list, plan ahead and do a few extra tasks one day.  As long as you are consistently making progress, the to-do list will no longer run your life!

 

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Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

12 comments

  1. I don’t have to write mine down, it is always in my head what I need to do the next day. Probably because I start preparing the night before. Great tips.

    1. I keep mine in my head until I get over 10 items. It’s hard to remember all of them when they aren’t repetitive tasks. I don’t often sand my walls 🙂

  2. Great tips. I like the idea of actually physically separating out the ones that take more & less than 15 minutes. I sort of do that, usually tackle the quick ones first.

  3. I’m a HUGE listmaker! They are scattered all over my workspace on random pieces of paper:) I love the idea of breaking out tasks to time investment. I always try to tackle the hardest thing first, but I can see knocking off a few short tasks would get the momentum going!

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