Tips for managing your To-do list

Get the most out of your To-do list with these helpful tips

Friday May 5, 2017 by Jer

If It's important, write it down

This is the whole reason you keep a To-do list in the first place, right? While this may seem obvious, it’s important to remember that if your To-do list is going to work you need to form the habit of writing down those important Tasks that you want to complete.

This doesn't mean you have to write down everything, but developing your own mental filter of what’s important enough to be on your To-do list is a key part of making it an effective productivity tool.

Avoid vague or unclear tasks

When you decide to add a new Task to your To-do list, take a moment to think about how you describe this task. Your description should ideally include what concrete actions you need to take to complete it. If after adding the Task the description still seems too vague or not detailed enough, consider using subtasks to break it down into more specific actions.

Review your To-do list daily and prune ruthlessly

It's important to find a productivity system that works for you. If you’ve decided that maintaining one or more To-do lists is what works best then it's a good idea to get in the habit of reviewing and editing your list on a daily basis.

Try to keep your list fresh and relevant, some possible actions to do at the start or end of your day:

• Mark complete any tasks you finished today
• If you haven't already done so, schedule some tasks to be completed tomorrow, but don’t schedule too much for the same day - be realistic and don't swamp your schedule
• In reviewing your unscheduled tasks, make sure they are all still relevant and delete any that no longer seem important

Today is better than someday

When you keep a To-do list it can be easy to keep adding new tasks without considering when you might have time to complete them. If possible try to include a due date when you create a task. Alternatively as you complete tasks, review what hasn’t been scheduled and see if you can set a suitable due date.

A To-do list that is bloated with too many tasks that don’t have a due date will become difficult to manage and less relevant as time goes by, this is the situation you want to avoid if your list is to become an effective tool in your productivity arsenal.

Taskary has a number of features that can help you managing your To-do list on a daily basis:

• Use subtasks if your task seems too vague or general. You can long press a task to start creating subtasks under a task
• Use the Later filter to review tasks that haven’t yet been scheduled, try to avoid having too many tasks in this filter by scheduling tasks each day
• You can swipe a task to schedule the due date. This will allow you to quickly set due dates on tasks that haven’t yet been scheduled
• Consider using a daily repeating task to remind you to review your To-do lists