You already know that to-do lists help you get focused and organized throughout the day. When you have your to-do list in hand, you’re freeing your mind from all the disorganized thoughts and, instead, getting them down on paper.

However, this technique can go awry if your to-do list isn’t organized as well as it should be. You might lose your motivation and drive and, at the end of the day, you may notice that most of the things from your list are not crossed off.

Follow these tips to create an effective to-do list:

1. Clarify Priorities. It may help you to develop some sort of ranking system for your to-do list. Certainly every item on the list can’t be equally important. You can even use a number system and rank them from 1 to 5. Items ranked 1 might have a lower priority, while the 5s are tasks you should attend to first. [Read more...]