We’ve all got a to-do list, whether it’s as short as “buy milk and pick the kids up” or as long as a month’s worth of projects. The very act of keeping a to-do list is itself a demonstration of your organisation, but going one step further and organising your to-do list could help you get things done more effectively, without sucking the energy out of you in the process.
“How?” The Triple Bucket method.
I recently received an email, the Think Clearly newsletter, written (or drawn, should I say) by Mathias Jakobsen, which explained this method. It essentially involves splitting your to-do list into 3 categories which help to keep you motivated throughout your list, whilst putting a prominence on important tasks.
Firstly…
Re-write down your to-do list from memory – this is a good way to determine what the most pressing issues are, and the ones that are hot on the mind. If you can’t remember about a task without needing to check a list, it’s probably not as important as the ones that are whizzing round your head all day.
Secondly…
Split up your to-do list into 3 buckets. A, B & C:
Bucket A
“Could do”
(Don’t worry about these)
Bucket B
“Should Do”
(Do these later)
Bucket C
“Want to do”
(These create energy)
Thirdly…
Now that you’ve split your to do list into 3 sections:
Don’t worry about Bucket A, you can do these whenever you like. Schedule time for Bucket B – you need to do them at some point so put a date in your diary and stick to it. Pick something from Bucket C to refresh your brain and do something you want to do. Use this energy to help tackle the tasks from Bucket B whilst sprinkling easy to do tasks from Bucket A.
Top tip: Use colour codes for the separate ‘buckets’ – Google Keep is great for this!
Here is a little diagram:
