Wealth Secret Of The Day – Double Your To Do List

Wealth Secret Of The Day - Double Your To Do List
Image – Pixabay (PD)

Here is a quick ‘power-up’ motivational tutorial…

Not getting everything done that is on your to-do list? I can relate. Try this:

DOUBLE THE SIZE OF YOUR TO-DO LIST.

What? That’s crazy? How the heck am I supposed to do double when I can’t even do what I already have set out in front of me??

JUST DO IT.

The point is this: You will have to change gear. Whatever gear you think you are in now, you DO have higher gears. I absolutely bet you that you have higher gears.

Are you going to Warp Factor 9? Are you???

Didn’t think so.

Why not?? You do know that the amount of time you have left to achieve your dreams is shrinking daily, don’t you? Get going!!

This mindset is also known as “gun to the head mentality”. Don’t try this at home, it’s a metaphor: Would you go faster if there was a gun to your head? Yes, you would.

Therefore, you CAN go that fast. You can get it done. No excuses are allowed.

Goal setting and absolute commitment are game-changers. They FORCE you into power mode. You want to be in such a high gear that you immediately eliminate all time-wasting activities. “No time for that crap today, I am going at full tilt” should be your internal focus. Failure is NOT AN OPTION. “Is it urgent? I have to go. I will call you back, bye. Click.”

You want to make your to-do list so intense that you start making mental shifts (of a good kind) in order to tackle it. You should be a little bit daunted. A bit like “How the heck am I going to do this?” That’s good. Pressure turns coal into diamonds. You can do it. But you need to light the fire under your butt. Do what it takes.

You might not get double your to-do list done, but you will certainly achieve more than you originally set out to do. You should also prioritize – focusing on the most important, valuable and urgent tasks first.

Obviously, don’t move so fast that you hurt yourself or put others at risk. Keep it legal and sensible. But the point is, you really could be getting twice as much done as you do. Yes, you!

When it comes to your to-do list; here are a couple of great tips.

1) Write that list the night before. Set it out on your desk so that you see it as soon as you sit down. Boom. I already saved you half an hour. Because otherwise, you would have just stumbled into your office, pulled up Facebook, emails, or Youtube… and zoned out for a while, getting randomly sucked into a whirlpool of distraction. Yes, you would. Whereas if you have a “Holy shit I have to hit the ground running at full tilt or else” type to-do list… you will not waste that time.

Half an hour per day, five days a week = 125 hours per year. Twenty years of that = over a year of extra productive time… just WASTED.

2) Be aware of Stephen Covey’s “Four Quadrant” Time Management Matrix. You should ONLY be doing activities in the top 2 quadrants. And these should be balanced as follows:

Q1 – Quadrant of Necessity (important and urgent): Give these tasks immediate attention and clear them out of the way as fast, efficiently and precisely as possible. Then focus on…
Q2 – Quadrant of Quality and Personal Leadership (important but not urgent items). This is where you build your future!
Q3 – Quadrant of Distractions With High Urgency (urgent but not important): These should be minimized, eliminated or delegated if possible.
Q4 – Quadrant of Low-Value Activities (not urgent and not important): – these should be eliminated to the greatest extent possible.

Summary: You will be amazed by this exercise. You will probably get double the amount done – or damn near it.