I believe in to-do lists, and I come up with new ways to keep these lists every 6 months. My latest fixation is Evernote, but there are plenty of other great ways out there to keep up with your to-do list.
But this blog is not about methods of keeping up with a to-do list. This blog is about your not-to-do list. This is a list of the tasks or projects you are ignoring, consciously ignoring. The projects and tasks on your not-to-do list may be important, perish the thought, even urgent, but they simply aren’t as important as the items on your active to-do list.
So what is the most important part of this? Don’t forget to tell your manager that you are ignoring these tasks or projects. It never works well when you declare that after the fact. Seriously, make a list of the items that you are not going to work on or complete today, this week or this month, and share it with your manager. You can (or your manager can) reassess as needed, but I guarantee this list will make you more productive, and assuming you chose the right items, more effective.
But this blog is not about methods of keeping up with a to-do list. This blog is about your not-to-do list. This is a list of the tasks or projects you are ignoring, consciously ignoring. The projects and tasks on your not-to-do list may be important, perish the thought, even urgent, but they simply aren’t as important as the items on your active to-do list.
So what is the most important part of this? Don’t forget to tell your manager that you are ignoring these tasks or projects. It never works well when you declare that after the fact. Seriously, make a list of the items that you are not going to work on or complete today, this week or this month, and share it with your manager. You can (or your manager can) reassess as needed, but I guarantee this list will make you more productive, and assuming you chose the right items, more effective.