Thursday, February 13, 2025

Prioritise your To Do List

What is the most important thing you have to do this year? What is the most important thing you have to do this quarter, this month or this week? Perhaps the most important question is what is the most important thing you have to do today?

Do you know what is important to you this week? Do you know what is important to you this year or this month? Not that which is urgent but that which is important, because there is difference between what is urgent and what is important. Very often we act on things that are urgent but not important because urgent things have a way of pressurizing us to move them to the top of our to do list.

Do you even have a to do list? If not why not? How can you hope to get things done if you do not have a to do list that lists things in order of their importance? If you do not have to do list chances are that you are going to get lost in the fog of everyday living. Chances are that by the end of the day or week you will have accomplished nothing even though you would have been very busy during the week.

Have you ever had the feeling that you seem to be spinning you wheels yet you have very little to show for it? Have you ever felt pressed for time that there isn’t enough time to get things done? Most people complain about the lack of time but it is not the lack of time that’s the problem but rather the lack of direction. Most people don’t know where they are going, if they have an idea they are usually not very specific about what they would want to accomplish because all they have is a general idea of what they would like to accomplish. They are not specific and focused. Instead they are wandering generalities.

So are you a wandering generality or are you a meaningful and specific person. Do you have a to do list? Do you know where you are going and the time frame for getting there?┬á The biggest undoing for most people is that they don’t have a system for tracking daily progress towards their goals. When I say system I don’t mean to sound sophisticated because in today’s sell anything world there are a million personal productivity enhancement systems. However, my conviction is that the best system is the one that suits you best. For instance I cannot for the life of me keep a diary, but I find that I am a lot more productive if I list things to do for the week and from that to do list extract my daily to do list. This to me is the best way to enhance personal productivity. That is of course assuming that your attitude supports the achievement of your own goals.

In my first book “Motivational Insights” published in 2002 by Pula Press and which has since been recommended to schools by the ministry of Education and Skills Development, I wrote that the purpose of life is a life of purpose and that the main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing. So following on that theme let me ask you what the main thing in your life is right now? Do you even know what the main thing is? Are your eyes focused on the main thing or are you busy with little urgent and unimportant things that are nibbling your time? Think about it. Urgent things are always pressing in on you but important things rarely ever even nudge you to act on them. So it is up to you to discipline yourself to focus on what matters instead of what doesn’t matter (there goes that word again “discipline”).

I find it interesting that most of us think we have time to get things done or that we have time here on earth. But the truth is we really don’t have that much time left. I have said this previously and I am going to say it again. I don’t care how old you are but even if you lived to be 100 years old you will still be too young to die. So get cracking my friend, start by making a list of what is important in your own view. List them in the order of importance and get started with number one and then number two and then number three and then four in their order of importance until they are done. Refuse the temptation to jump to item number 3 before number two is done. However, should circumstances force you to do number 3 before number 2 is done then by all means do that but then get back to item number 2 as early and as conveniently possible.
If you cannot improve your productivity this way chances are that you will never improve your productivity any other way.

Lets Sithole has been a leading motivational speaker and coach for the last 10 years. You can join him on facebook or you can send him an email at [email protected]

Lets Sithole – 71649959
“Opportunities multiply as you seize them.”
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