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How To Get Stuff Done

Written by: Adam Sonnhalter

Article Overview: Do you have a "To Do List?" Most people have one or multiple ones these days. I'm on a mission to rid the world of To Do Lists! I say, throw them all away!

How To Get Stuff Done

Do you have a "To Do List?" Most people have one or multiple ones these days. I'm on a mission to rid the world of To Do Lists! I say, throw them all away! Eventually that "To Do List" becomes a "To Worry About List" because it continues to grow and you continue to beat yourself up and "worry" about everything you haven't done yet.

There's an easier way to get things done. SCHEDULE IT!

Instead of writing down a list of all the things you want to get done, do what SUCCESSFUL people have been doing for decades (and most likely centuries). They put things into their calendars.

I don't care if you're still using a paper-based Day Planner or the latest iPhone. With today's technology, it's easy to find a calendar that works for you.

So instead of a To Do List, here's what I do to prioritize my tasks:

1. Do It Now: if something is urgent and important and will only take a few minutes, I'll do it on the spot. It almost takes more time to find a To Do List and to write it down than it does to actually do the task.

2. Schedule It: if it's important and takes more than a few minutes to complete, then I put an appointment into the calendar of my Palm Treo to remind me to complete the task. If it's important enough for me to pay attention to it, then I should put it in my calendar so I remember to do it. The key is to schedule everything out at a future date and time. It could be something as simple as reminding yourself to print something out later tonight or to pick up some diapers on the way home. Or it could be an appointment with your customer or a meeting with your banker. Either way, you have it covered. Some things aren't as time sensitive. Maybe you publish a monthly newsletter. Well, it doesn't matter what day it gets out, just that it gets out during the month. So perhaps you set a reminder for yourself in the middle of the month that you should be working on it. It's OK if it slips a few days or weeks, because it will still be done on time by the end of the month.

3. Delegate It: if I'm not the right person to get something done or if I can't make time to complete the task before it's due, I'll make sure to delegate it to someone else who can.

4. Say No & Move On: I find that some of the biggest items that clutter up To Do Lists are things that you've promised someone else you'll do, but they aren't important enough to you to make time to do them. So you put them on your list with every intention of getting to it ("when you have time"), but the days and weeks and months go by and it doesn't get done. Cut these things off from the start. If you can't slot the item into numbers 1-3 above, then the task is probably better suited for someone else to get it done. Don't add it to your list and create more stress for yourself.

Do something as simple as following the above 4 steps and you'll save yourself a lot of time and money. You won't need to buy and read those books and attend those seminars to help you "manage your time" better.

Make sure you don't overschedule yourself. But make sure you don't have any "empty" time on your calendar either. Something can always fill in that empty space. Just schedule in your most time sensitive and important tasks and you'll make sure you always get the key things done...like attend your son's T-ball games!

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Article Tags: getting things done, time management, to do lists



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Re: This Month's Leader is not working fine. - Me too, Trent. Oh well. Stuff happens. I know that from being in the software business. I didn't even know Glitches existed before I got into this business. Now I know more than I ever wanted to. LOL
Are You a Businessgirl or a Businesswoman? - One thing that has irked me off and on for 30 years is the tendency of people - both men [i:2wryyhvf]and [/i:2wryyhvf]women, to refer to women, whatever their age, as 'girls' rather than women. College basketball announcers, coachers and players do it, as do the fans. These are 'girls' who are between the ages of 18 - 21, that's women in my book. Tennis players and announcers do it. John McEnroe called 'em girls and just when I was getting annoyed at him for being a bit of a male chauvanist, they interviewed player Lindsay Davenport - 30 years old, and she referred to 'em as girls as well. The Bond "girls" were girls up until the 90s, I admit, doing nothing more than providing someone for Bond to bed and rescue, but in the last few installments the "girl" has been more of a power player...nevertheless she's still a 'girl'. And of course there was the TV series The Golden Girls - which I liked by the way, but which featured mature women calling themselves girls And now here it is in the 2000s, and we get this: The Girl's Guide To Starting Your Own Business, by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio. Their photos are on the cover - presumably the photo is of them and not models - and they are definitely women, not girls. And what "girly" chapter titles do they give us? "The Scary Stuff" (financial matters) and a chapter on ACTING Like an Adult. (Caps mine). So popular was this book, apparently, that they've now come out with a sequel: The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being A Bitch): Valuable Lessons, Smart Suggestions, and true stories for succeeding as the CHICK-IN-CHARGE. (My caps) and once again I was tempted to take the book and throw it across the room. Let's indulge in [i:2wryyhvf]all [/i:2wryyhvf]the cliches, shall we? So I'd like to hear from other businesswomen out there. Do you find yourself referred to as a girl? Do you mind it? Do you like the culture that still propagates that mindset?


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