Long lists don't get done

Start making smaller to-do lists too. Long lists collect dust. When's the last time

you finished a long list of things? You might have knocked off the first few, but

chances are you eventually abandoned it (or blindly checked off items that

weren't really done properly).

Long lists are guilt trips. The longer the list of unfinished items, the worse you

feel about it. And at a certain point, you just stop looking at it because it makes

you feel bad. Then you stress out and the whole thing turns into a big mess.

There's a better way. Break that long list down into a bunch of smaller lists.

For example, break a single list of a hundred items into ten lists of ten items.

That means when you finish an item on a list, you've completed 10 percent of

that list, instead of 1 percent.

Yes, you still have the same amount of stuff left to do. But now you can look

at the small picture and find satisfaction, motivation, and progress. That's a lot

better than staring at the huge picture and being terrified and demoralized.

Whenever you can, divide problems into smaller and smaller pieces until

you're able to deal with them completely and quickly. Simply rearranging your

tasks this way can have an amazing impact on your productivity and motivation.

And a quick suggestion about prioritization: Don't prioritize with numbers or

labels. Avoid saying, "This is high priority, this is low priority." Likewise, don't

say, "This is a three, this is a two, this is a one, this is a three," etc. Do that and

you'll almost always end up with a ton of really high-priority things. That's not

really prioritizing.

Instead, prioritize visually. Put the most important thing at the top. When

you're done with that, the next thing on the list becomes the next most important

thing. That way you'll only have a single next most important thing to do at a

time. And that's enough.