Want to change your life? Rock your to-do list!

Can you really change your life with your to-do list?

Yes, you can. And here’s how: Prepare the night before. Think on paper. Put your to do list together and write everything down. And be ready to limit the amount of things that are on that list.

If you just put down everything you think of, you end up with an enormous list – and you know what happens then. You start your day and you find the smallest thing on this list and just get that knocked out. telling yourself: “Let me just clear up the little stuff first.”

And you keep going like that. Here’s the danger in that: That little stuff will suck you into a time vortex that takes you away from your priorities.

If you are going to write things down on a list, make sure they are your priorities, or your manager’s priorities, or your customer’s priorities.

Work on the biggest ones first, until they’re done. Leave the little stuff until the end of the day. The most important thing to think about when you are working on this is: What’s the purpose of this activity?
Is it taking me closer to my goals, or further away?

How to use your to-do list to be more successful

The to-do list is more than just a good idea. It’s a necessity.

So how do you make a list that will accommodate all the stuff that gets thrown at you, and still enable you to stay on track?

At the end of the day, you plan for the next day. You prioritize and get your A items listed out. Those are the must-do items.

Your B items are your should-do items.

Your C items are your nice-to-do items. Now this is where most sales people fall into a trap, and  focus too much time on their nice-to-do’s .

The nice-to-do’s might be lunch with a colleague, running an errand. Let’s face it. When you’re doing this stuff, you’re not working on the clock. You’re not necessarily punching a clock You don’t have a manager looking over your shoulder, asking “Where are you? What are you doing?”

And you’re in the field. So you can run those errands. You can stop home. Pick up the dry cleaning. Things like that. Nice-to-do’s. But the nice-to-do’s can eat up your day. Be careful with the nice-to-do’s. I’m not saying always avoid them. Nice-to-do’s can also be disguised as “Well this is important,” like visiting an existing customer.

If you don’t have a purpose for your call, visiting the existing customer is just visiting. And visiting is nice to do. Visiting with a plan takes it up a notch, and it’s more efficient use of your time. So your C items, be careful with what you’re doing.

You move to your D items, the ones that should be delegated to somebody else.