Want to Unfrazzle Your Life? Burn Your To-Do List!

If your work life-or home life-is out of control, and you feel the need to get it back on track, start by burning your to-do list. Why? Well, let's start with the notion that they just don't work! Most people who use to-do lists spend more time on making and revising and re-creating lists than they do actually getting items crossed off them!
The big problem with to-do lists, whether you use sticky notes, sheets of paper, or a PIM (Personal Information Manager), like Outlook, is that they make no allowance for how much time it actually takes to perform a given task. The net effect is that you end up with a seemingly endless list of tasks that absolutely have be accomplished and, having spent countless hours putting your list together, you are no closer to getting the first task crossed off your list than when you started.
Try this, instead. Use your PIM to make appointments to deal with tasks. I use Microsoft Outlook to run my life. I started by resetting the software to show my day in 5 minute increments. Then I began entering everything that would normally be on my to-do list. And, I do mean everything. I made entries for every phone call I intended to make, every bill I needed to pay, and every bit of research I needed to do.
As my list started to grow, I began moving less important tasks to future dates, using the drag and drop features in the weekly and monthly view. As soon as I moved an appointment, I stopped for a moment to evaluate how long I thought it might take to complete the task. Brief phone calls stayed at five minutes. Phone calls to people that I know can be chatty were adjusted to 10 or 15 minutes. If I knew that I would be going out of my office to accomplish a task, I made sure that I included travel time when setting the appointment duration.
Here's how I use my PIM:

1. I load my tasks into the time of day when I am most likely to actually get them done. I rarely make appointments out of my office before 10:00 AM, so I load my five minute appointments into Outlook starting at 8:00 AM. There's very little point in scheduling appointments for the afternoon if I'm not going to be there to deal with them.
2. I never under-estimate the time it will take to perform a task. I never allow less than five minutes per task. If in doubt, I allow more time that I might need. This prevents overload!
3. When I make a call there is a good chance that I won't get through to the person I want to talk to. In that case, I open up the appointment and, in the big pane at the bottom, I make a note of when I called, and what the result was. I type the date and time in at the start of this note. After saving the appointment, I drag it to the next time or day when I intend to follow up.
4. I keep Outlook open when I am on the phone. If the conversation I'm having results in new items for my task list, I create the necessary appointments for the day when the conversation is taking place. Once the conversation is over, I can allocate an appropriate amount of time to each task, then drag and drop them to the appropriate dates and times.
5. Once a conversation is over, I ask myself whether or not I'm going to need to follow up with this person in the future. If I think I might, I change the title of the appointment, or make a note in the body, and reschedule it for a future date, whether it be two weeks or six months down the line. When it comes up again, I can act on it, reschedule it, or delete it if it's no longer important to me.
6. I never "fill up" my calendar. No matter what I might think, I cannot (or will not!) work solidly for 8 or 10 hours. Allowing 10-15 minutes or so of downtime in each one hour block allows me to, at least, grab a coffee when I want one, and deal with "incoming" matters, such as phone calls and mail.
7. Believe it or not, I schedule appointments for "non-productive" time, such as filing, going to the post office and, even, getting my hair cut. I do this because it , let's face it, these things do have to get done, and it allows me to see how much time I have on my calendar for "productive" appointments.

I don't advocate obsessing about time, but scheduling this way will give you a broader overview of how much time you have available, and provide you with the structure that you need to get things done.