Ever feel overwhelmed and stressed by an endless to-do list? If so, you’re not alone.
However, the fastest way to burn out, experience health concerns, and defeat, is stress. So rather than letting yourself feel overwhelmed and stressed from a to-do list, the easiest way to relieve those feelings is by “chunking down” your list.
Chunking is a tool that we teach in Performance Coach University to help you better problem solve and overcome major obstacles standing in your way.
Today’s “To-Do VS. Not-Do list” is a tool we’re sharing with you that also utilizes parts of the 4 Quadrants tool, which is also taught in our performance coach training program.
So by merging these two tools together, we’re able to create more clarity into where and how we should be spending our time especially when the to-dos seem to never end and you or your client is feeling a bit overwhelmed.
How does this tool work?
Step 1: Write down the major outcome you’re wanting to achieve. What’s the major goal you’re after? Write that down.
Step 2: Write down everything you currently have on your plate. Make sure you write absolutely everything. This can be related or unrelated to your outcome, either way, just write it down.
Step 3: Time to start chunking down your list into 4 categories based on how they align with your main outcome or goals. Just write down next to each line item 1, 2, 3, 4 based on the following:
1 – Urgent and Important
2 – Important Not Urgent
3 – Urgent, Not Important
4 – Not Important and Not Urgent
Items that may fall under each category would be something like this:
1 – crisis, emergencies, deadline-driven projects, last-minute prep work for scheduled activities. **Be quick to delegate what you can in this area.
2 – preparing or planning for opportunities, exercise, relationship building activities, critical thinking activities to prevent or prepare for the future.
3 – Not your emergency/responsibility, popular activities, some meetings, some mail and reports, interruptions.
4 – Busy work, junk mail, mindless scrolling through social media, escape activities, time wasters.
Step 4: Write down all the 1’s in the first box: “MANAGE LIST”. These are things that must be managed and completed, however, they don’t necessarily have to be done by you. Delegate what you can from this list.
Write down all the 2’s in the second box: “FOCUS LIST”. These are items that allow are really empowering to you and move you forward in high-quality and meaningful work, allow for productive collaboration and great care for yourself and important relationships.
Write down 3’s in the third box. Yay! We’ve made it to our “not-to-do list”. These are things we want to avoid or limit. They are low-value interruptions and usually something that can easily be done by someone else especially if we take the time to train them.
Write down 4’s in the fourth box. These items are clearly things that don’t need to be on your to-do list because they aren’t important or urgent. With the use of technology these days, some of these things may even be able to be automated so you never have to think about it again. Also, you’ll find a lot of time-wasters here. These are definitely things you either want to have automated for you or leverage to someone else, but it’s certainly a very very low priority that you want to either avoid or limit.
Next week, we’ll share how to know when and what to delegate or leverage out as well what to say to others, so that you don’t feel that you’re the only one to do it.
Make sure to download this performance coaching tool below and use it for yourself or your clients to better prioritize and minimize your to-do list so you feel more energized, less stressed, and have more time back doing what you love with the ones you love while improving your overall performance.
To Your Success,
Jairek Robbins + Team PCU
Ready to level up your coaching and leadership game? Want to make a big impact in the lives of others? Add more power to your purpose with our 12-week online Performance Coach certification course.
Learn more at https://www.performancecoachuniversity.com/request-application/