The List

Have you ever noticed when you get up, you know you have so much to do, but yet, you don’t know where to begin? You’re over whelmed and if not careful, you will procrastinate and ultimately get noting done.

That is where “the list” comes in.  A list helps to keep us all organized. Making a list is very easy, but keeping it close is the secret. What good is a list if when you look for it, its not accessible. This again returns us to organizational skills.

With our daily lives so crazy, and demanding, it is hart to keep a list without loosing it, or making a list for different aspects of our lives. To make a list for school, one for work, and one for household chores then a shopping list, is insane. Keeping a little notebook and breaking down the page into small little sections; instead is the best way to go. The family food, shopping list would be on a separate page and you can add daily to this.

With a little pocket notebook, you can have a page and just list the things that need to be done today, while the next page can have what needs to be done in the near future. As you complete a daily task, you cross it off, and move onto the next thing.

Whatever does not get done today, can be done tomorrow, and this is how you start tomorrows list.

Now you have this notebook, I have given you some sort of idea how to use it, but it is up to you to find away to make it work. Some suggestions that work very well is, first get the notebook, and keep it with you. Keeping the notebook with you at all times, including before going to bed, is very helpful, because as your preparing to retire for the night, is when you come to realize what other things you forgot. So you can add them as you settle in for the night. Once the light is off, your day is done and tomorrow, is another day.

In the morning you look at the things that have to be done, dishes, study, vacuum, the laundry, make dinner, you number them according to what is most important; you prioritize “the list”, and now you start your day.  You would not start dinner at 10am, if the family does not eat until 6, unless of course the meat needs to be seasoned and stored; this part of dinner can be done at 10AM. As you complete each task you cross it off, as you realize new things that need to be done, you add them to the list, and you operate like this during the day.

As the day moves on, you realize that there are things you need to do, but it can wait until tomorrow. Now you start tomorrows list, and during lunch you may glance at things that need to be done in the future, school fairs, book sales, a trip to the library, this is a running list.  Now you continue this through out the day, nighttime comes and there are things you just did not get to, but that is OK, you just add these items to tomorrow list. Hey, if they were very important when you prioritized the list it would have been high on the list and would have gotten done.

You sit down, and make tomorrows list, putting what was not done today, at the top, you take a look at the “future list” to see if any of the event need to be done tomorrow, if so you add them to that new list and off to bed you go with your note book.

Again you keep the little notebook close so you can continuously add things that need to be done today, tomorrow or in the near future. This is one very important step in organizing your time and eliminating procrastination.