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First of all, of course, you have to have a to-do list! Whether it is written and hanging on your bulletin board, stuck with magnets on your refrigerator, or hidden in your wallet or purse, or even just somewhere in the back of your mind, you have to have a list of things to do! Or things you want to do! Either way, the things won't get done if you don't have a list, somewhere, of some kind. So if you don't have a list already, make one!

Then decide priorities. If your list is of things you HAVE to do, with deadlines, then you already have the priorities, and you know which ones you need to start working on right away. However, most of the things on our to-do lists won't be prioritized. They are things we "want to do before dying", so we have just written them down or thought of them for weeks, months, or years. Now is a good time to give them time-frames!

Once you've gotten everything prioritized, it is time to start working on the list! Begin with the item that needs to be finished first, and get busy on it. If you don't have time to finish it, or don't have something you need in order to finish it, stop where you need that item or where the time runs out. I would say only give each item no more than a hour at a time, the first week or so, at least. That way, you can ease into working on the items, and possibly even get some of them checked off before that first week is up. Don't try to tackle too many at once, though; a limit of 3-5 at a time should be about right. That way, you can work on one for a while and then move to another one. By the time you've worked on the third one a while, you should be ready to take a break or have another "go" at the first item. You may even have thought of a different way to do it!

The beauty of this method is that you will finish at least one item within a short time. That will encourage you to work harder on finishing another item on the list; it will also allow you to begin working on another item that you have on the list that had to wait its turn! So now you are encouraged to keep working, to see how many items you can finish in a certain length of time.

And during that time you are working on finishing your list, be sure to add any other items you think you might like to do. The list may never get "finished" by doing that, but you will still have a sense of accomplishment, because you will be crossing items off your list on a regular basis. That, alone, will encourage you to keep on keeping on!

Learn more about this author, Barbara A. Black.
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