How to Prioritize Your To-Do List

Let’s be honest, in today’s society we ALL have incredibly busy lives … and if you’re anything like me, you also have BIG goals you’d like to achieve!! But between juggling work, chores, cooking meals, getting enough sleep, spending time with a spouse/family … and those of you who have kiddos with busy schedules adds a whole other layer of chaos to your days, it can be SO easy to let things fall through the cracks!! Managing your daily tasks can be challenging, especially if you have a lot on your plate. The best way to tackle this problem is by prioritizing your to-do list with a Daily Planner. It honestly seems like such a simple solution, but truly, utilizing my planner as the tool that it is has been the KEY to my success in staying organized, keeping track of tasks at hand, managing my time appropriately, and prioritizing my work!!

In this blog post, we will take a look at WHY prioritizing your to-do list is important and HOW to do it effectively with a planner. We will also explore some tips and tricks to help you stay on top of your tasks and make the most of using your planner as an effective resource.

Why Prioritizing Your To-Do List Is Important:

Prioritizing your to-do list is important for several reasons. First, it helps you stay focused on the most important tasks and ensure that you complete them on time. Trying to mentally keep track of everything that needs to get done without putting it into some sort of planning system is a recipe for disaster!! We have too many curve balls and inconsistencies thrown at us day-to-day that are unpredictable, so trying to remember everything without writing them down is pretty unrealistic if you ask me! So keeping a to-do list is especially important if you have A LOT of tasks to complete and a tight deadline.

Second, it helps you manage your time effectively. I absolutely love using my Daily Grind Planner because it allows me to break down my days LITERALLY hour by hour!! As well as organizing my TOP 3 areas of focus for that day alone. This way, even if my day gets away from me, I know that I have prioritized AT LEAST those 3 things that are my non-negotiable to-do’s … then everything else can be dispersed or moved to the next day, if needed. So by prioritizing your tasks, you can allocate your time accordingly and ensure that you have enough time to complete what you need to.

Third, prioritizing your to-do list can help reduce stress and anxiety, IMMENSELY. Not to be dramatic, but do not underestimate what staying organized can do for your overall mental health! When you have a lot of tasks to complete, it can be overwhelming, and you may not know where to start which can sometimes result in getting little to nothing done at all. Raise your hand if that’s happened to you … I know exactly how that feels because that used to be me! I learned over the years that by prioritizing your tasks, you can break them down into smaller, more bite-sized (or as I like to say, tiny shark bites, lol) & manageable tasks, and tackle them one at a time. This can seriously help reduce stress and anxiety and make it easier to stay focused and productive… and therefore get WAY more done than you probably thought possible!

How to Prioritize Your To-Do List with a Planner:

Now that we understand why prioritizing your to-do list is important, let's take a look at HOW to do it effectively with a planner.

Step 1: Write Down All Your Tasks

I want to break it down a little further for you in terms of how I like to prioritize my to-do list … because it goes a bit beyond JUST my daily tasks! I like to use my Daily Grind Planner to set out my TOP 10, bigger goals for each month. BUT, I continue to keep writing those top ten goals down on my DAILY to-do list. This way they stay in the forefront of my mind & I can take a SMALL chunk out of those bigger goals every single day. Make sense?? So the first step in prioritizing your to-do list is to write down ALL of the things you’d like to accomplish. This includes both personal and professional tasks. Write down everything that you need/want to do, no matter how small or ‘insignificant’ it may seem… if it’s important to you & it’s going to get you to that next step, then it matters!

Step 2: Categorize Your Tasks

Once you have written down all your tasks, the next step is to categorize them. This will help you prioritize your tasks based on their importance and urgency. You can categorize your tasks in different ways, such as by project, deadline, priority, personal, professional … whatever works for you.

Step 3: Determine Your Priorities

After categorizing your tasks, the next step is to determine your priorities. This involves deciding which tasks are the most important and which can wait. You can use a simple system to assign priorities to your tasks, such as color-coding, or using symbols, numbers or letters.

For example, you can use the following system:

Priority 1: Tasks that are urgent and important

Priority 2: Tasks that are important but not urgent

Priority 3: Tasks that are urgent but not super important

Priority 4: Tasks that are neither urgent nor important

Step 4: Schedule Your Tasks

Once you have determined your priorities, the next step is to schedule your tasks…. Aka create your GAME PLAN for the day!! This involves deciding when you will work on each task and how much time you will allocate to each task. You can use your planner to schedule your tasks and ensure that you have enough time to complete them.

Step 5: Review and Adjust Your To-Do List As Needed

Finally, it is important to allow yourself grace and flexibility to review, adjust & analyze your to-do list regularly. This involves checking your progress, updating your priorities, and making changes if and when needed. Your planner can offer you the capability to track your progress along the way so that you can make the necessary adjustments. The only thing that IS predictable, is that life is UNpredictable and will throw you curveballs from time to time, so having a system to help you stay on track towards your big and small goals is crucial in helping you to not totally derail when something goes awry. When you’re consistently using a planner for your to-dos, you can keep the important tasks at the forefront of your mind and re-adjust as needed without totally falling off course!

Okay dudes, to wrap this one up … it's a fact that we all lead busy lives. Juggling work, family, and social commitments, it can be a lot!! With so much going on, it can be difficult to keep track of everything that needs to be done. This is where keeping a to-do list with a tangible system like a planner can come in handy.

It is a simple yet POWERFUL tool that can help you organize your life, reduce overwhelm, increase your productivity & give you a major sense of accomplishment!! I hope this was helpful & inspired you to take the time to develop a way to stay on track that works for you!