Let's be honest. You're never going to get anything done if you can't control where you spend your time. It's like trying to get rich when you've never met a sale you didn't like. If you can't hold on to some of the time you've been given and direct it toward the tasks you need to get done, they just aren't going to get done. Just like the best way to get rich is to budget your money, the best way to get things done is to budget your time.
What Do You Need to Spend Your Time On?
Start by writing out the dreaded list. My personal preference is to use the back of old envelopes, but paper or digital is up to you. I suggest you don't spend more time trying to enter tasks into your phone app than they will take to complete. I also suggest you don't write "Big Project" or "Clean House" on your list. Be specific and break large ideas into smaller tasks. List everything you can think of and get it all out of your head (sometimes referred to as a "dump" or a "brain dump"). What do you need/want to get done?
Time to Organize and Prioritize
Everything can be described as either important or unimportant and urgent or non-urgent. Use these descriptors to break your list into prioritized categories.
"Due Today" - Anything that is both important and urgent has to be done today. These items will need to be completed first.
"Important to Do Sometime" - Important but non-urgent are easy to procrastinate. These may include large projects that aren't due for a few weeks. You will want to schedule time to work toward completing these after you have completed those tasks in the "Due Today" category.
"Due Soon or Not at All" - When it's unimportant but urgent, it has a deadline but isn't really important to complete. These tasks are low priority on the day. If you don't get them done, they will just disappear with little or no consequence as the deadline passes.
"Some Day..." - Anything that is both unimportant and non-urgent doesn't have to be done today. Maybe you'll do it some day...
Allocate Your Time
Looking only at the "Due Today" category, order the tasks with the shortest and easiest tasks first. This concept may seem backwards; but remember, you are going to complete everything in this category today. Crossing off simple tasks will give you momentum on your day and narrow your list. A quickly shrinking list will also be less overwhelming.
Next, give your best estimate for how long each task should take you. You are trying to determine how much time you have left for less urgent tasks. You can also use these time estimates to monitor how well you are doing throughout the day.
Repeat these two steps with each category until you run out of work time. Since time is finite, there's no point planning to spend more than you have.
Get to Work
Getting things done is all about actually doing something. Double-check your list and get to work. Start with the first item on your prioritized list and cross things off as you complete them. Review your list often to make sure tasks aren't going over budget. Continually reevaluate your budget throughout the day. You only have so much time, so spend it wisely.
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