Regular To-Do Lists have limitations

As I work on running my own business, I fall into this trap all the time. I make a list of all the things I want to get done and then I get overwhelmed. Without a clear structure for making decisions, I get reactive and fall back on familiar ways of deciding what to do: working on everything that seems urgent first. Tasks that are important, but not urgent, often fall by the wayside.

I have used Stephen Covey’s time management matrix, but I still end up with a number of items in the “Important, not urgent” quadrant, making it hard to know what to focus on. 

Build a Success List instead

Gary Keller, author of “The ONE Thing”, argues that what we need is not a to-do list, but a success list instead. A success list is organized and points you in a specific direction. 

How do you turn a to do list into a success list? By applying Pareto’s Principle to it. You might have heard of Pareto’s Principle as the 80/20 rule. 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. You want to identify the 20% that will give you 80% of your results. But Keller argues that you can take this even further. Take that new list, and apply the same principle again and again, until you get to the single most important thing - the ONE thing!

Pick the right basket

We often think that the problem is that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do. But the real problem is that we are trying to do too many things in the time we have. Rather than putting our eggs in one basket and watching it, we try to carry lots of eggs in many baskets. 

So how do we effectively pick the right basket? Keller calls the first question to ask ourselves “The Focusing Question”: 

What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

You can ask yourself this question for different areas of your life: Your career, your business, your relationships, your finances, your health, your personal growth etc.

Apply the Question

1. What area of your life would you like to improve? Pick one to start with. Let’s say you chose “Career.”

2. Then ask yourself The Focusing Question for that area:

What’s the ONE Thing I can do in my career, such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

3. You might decide that for you it is to move into a new role. You can apply the question again:

What’s the ONE Thing I can do to move into this new role…?

Let me know what area of your life you chose and what your ONE Thing is that you want to focus on! 

To watch this content as a short video, go to: Turn Your To Do List Into a Success List 

Manuela helps heart-centered professionals who feel stuck or unhappy create a career they love. Download her free e-guide: "5 Massive Mistakes Even Smart Professionals Make That Keep Them From Creating a Career They Love"