The most effective to do list template

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The daily card is a term that we use from Work the Plan for your daily to do list. So, you might have a planner and the question is whether or not you use the planner correctly; if we actually use what’s written in the planner to direct our days? And the daily card can be just a card, just a post-it, an index card, or it can be a section in the planner. But the point of it is to keep a very truncated, limited, small set of tasks for that day alone. 

So, you make a list of the top priorities for that day. And you re-do that every day. You might make it the night before, or you might make it the morning of, but you’re not making a daily card for every day of the week during your Weekly Review. Every day you’re renewing your task list and adjusting because sometimes the needs and the priorities of where our attention needs to go for the day do really adjust on a day-by-day basis, and I think now more than ever, we recognize that. 

How do you decide what your daily three are? Can it be in all different kinds of formats? Are the tasks typically habitual things? How do you keep wishful thinking off the daily card? People often say, “Mine turn into a daily brain dump so I struggle with knowing which three.”

Knowing what to put on the card—that is the hardest part for everybody. And so, what we have to remember is the reason why we do a daily card every single day is for the practice so that we keep iterating, we keep learning, we learn from the previous day, and implement that the next day. 

So, the more and more we practice, the better and better we get at knowing what needs to go on the list. If you’ve made a daily card before and you find at the end of the day that really what you put on your list was wishful thinking and not what actually was important to do today that’s something to think about. That’s what you adjust moving forward. And what I found when I recognized that as well, was that I make a better daily list when I do it the night before rather than the morning of (and that’s not a universal thing.) It really depends on person to person. But, for myself, when I stop at the end of the day and I look at the list that I made for that day and see what did and didn’t happen, I make a more realistic plan for the next day when I’m tired and wishing I had accomplished what was on my list. And also recognizing the wishful thinking or how things changed that day that made the priority shift. Or recognizing, ‘Okay, I put that on my list and I didn’t do it, I’m procrastinating that. It needs to keep going on the list and I’m going to put it on there.’ 

In the morning, I feel more like, ‘Oh, fresh start, everything’s possible!’ I tend to be more energetic and optimistic in the morning and my to do list will reflect that. So, I make a more realistic to do list if I do it the night before. Your mileage may vary, but the point really, is to try it out. Try different times, try different formats, try different ways to write out your list, and learn. 

So, think of each daily list as an experiment and you can apply what you’ve learned to the next day’s card. 

At Simply Convivial we do not believe in one-size-fits-all solutions, plans, or check lists. I’m all about teaching you the principles and the skills that you need to figure out what’s going to work for you in your particular situation with your particular needs. If that’s what you need then make sure to subscribe and check out some of my other videos, including my series on Getting Your Life Organized in One Week. Check those out here. 

Always remember that your attitude is the most important part of your organization project. So, repent, rejoice, repeat. See you next time.

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