[Practices] Writing a daily todo list

This simple action is one of the things that help me stay laser-focused on what needs to be delivered short-term, and what can be safely delegated for later.

When I start my day, I start writing down what needs to be done as a list of items, and I prioritize these items according to the criticality and urgency.

How to prioritize the list items?

• P0: Critical with a close deadline

• P1: Not critical, but has a close deadline

• P2: Critical but doesn’t have a close deadline

• P3: Not critical and doesn’t have a close deadline

Such that priority p0 is the most important and p3 is the least important.

Tip: please don’t get overwhelmed by the priorities labels. It’s only useful if you’re confused about what should be done TODAY and what can be delegated for later. Otherwise you can ignore it.

I usually have many p0-p2 items on my plate, that I end up delegating p3 items till I have a capacity for them or their priority changes.

But I have too many things to do!

The thing about work is it is never over. So, what you need to do is, be smart about identifying what is REALLY important and prioritize high-impact high-value items.

If you thought it through, but you still think you have an overwhelming amount of P0’s then you’re probably in a damage control sort of situation.

So, you need to declare this as soon as you know it, especially to your manager if these are work-related, and seek their guidance on identifying what can be missed with minimal damage.

If they are not work-related, then you can split these P0’s into sub P0 priorities based on the potential-damage upon missing them and go from there.

Which tool should I use for this?

Whatever you feel comfortable with.

Personally, a notepad is even more than enough for me.

I start it with `# <date> Todos` then start listing items, usually with leftovers from yesterday, and add whatever new items I got, then prioritize them if necessary.

It takes about 5–10 minutes, then I switch from planning mode to execution mode.