Coaching practices for Purposeful to Do List

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Purposeful to Do List, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• My to-do list has everything I could ever conceivably do crammed onto it, so there’s no honest line between someday-maybe and what I’m actually committing to today
• I open my laptop and the inbox instantly hijacks my whole day
• My list is just a flat wall of tasks that all look equally urgent, so I keep grabbing whatever’s easiest instead of whatever matters
• I keep a to-do list a mile long but it never tells me when anything happens, so every task feels equally postponable
• My list is full of vague headings like "website" and "the John thing" that I keep skipping over because I don’t actually know what the first move is

Practices that may help

1. Separate "will-do" from "to-do" lists
   Keep a master to-do list distinct from the closed daily "will-do" list that you actually commit to.
   Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical
2. Name one most-important task each morning
   Each day, identify the single item from your Focus List that most needs to move forward today.
   Warren Buffett’s Two-List Strategy
3. The ABCDE prioritization method
   Label every task A (must), B (should), C (nice), D (delegate), or E (eliminate) before starting.
   Eat That Frog, Made Practical
4. Calendar time blocking
   Give every task a specific start and end time on your calendar.
   Time Blocking, Made Practical
5. Write every Action Step starting with a verb
   An Action Step that begins with a verb is completable; one that doesn’t is usually a wish or a category, not a task.
   The Action Method, Made Practical
6. Organize actions by context
   Group next actions by where, with what, or with whom they can be done.
   Getting Things Done (GTD), Made Practical
7. Only put tasks on the board that you’ve explicitly decided to do
   Your Kanban board is not a wish list — only tasks you have consciously committed to belong in To Do.
   Personal Kanban, Made Practical
8. Identify most important tasks (MITs) each morning
   Choose one to three tasks that must happen today and do them before anything else.
   Zen To Done (ZTD), Made Practical
9. Decompose tasks to a single next physical action
   Replace any task name with the single next physical action that moves it forward.
   Task Initiation: Overcoming the Start Problem
10. Clarify each item into a concrete next action
    For every captured item, decide what it is and the very next physical action.
    Getting Things Done (GTD), Made Practical

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