10 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Manage a ‘Never-Ending’ To-Do List

Many entrepreneurs share a unique lifestyle and work demands that can become very hectic to manage. This is not only true of the business side of things, but personally as well. But streamlining a never ending daily to-do list of tasks and errands can be easier with a few key productivity tips.

Here are ten simple ways to effectively manage a long to-do list:

1. Stay organized. Designate a notebook, white board or other tool to create and manage your to-do list.
2. Review tasks daily. Make your task list daily, either at the start of the day or the night before. It takes less time than you might expect once you get into a consistent habit. Include both personal and professional to-do items on your list.
3. Prioritize. Number to-do items by priority, making sure that you put what needs to be done first at the top of your list.
4. Delegate.  Delegate tasks to others each day. If you’re unable to delegate daily, decide early in the week what tasks you’ll take on yourself and what you’ll be handing to someone else and make a separate list of those items.
5. Remain focused. Stay focused on the day’s tasks. Don’t get sidetracked on tasks due at a later time during the day. For example, calendar items such as meetings, events, etc. should be kept on a separate to-do list.
6. Set goals. Decide how many tasks you want to check off of your list — at a minimum. For example, if you can get at least three tasks completed by the end of the day, you’ll have made progress.
7. Rollover incomplete tasks. Add incomplete tasks to your new to-do list each day, and be sure to prioritize them within the mix of everything else on your agenda.
8. Leverage technology. For example, Google Documents is a great tool that can enable sharing to-do lists with others along with real-time updates as your team crosses completed items off the shared list. Calendar reminders and invites in email can also help keep projects organized and remind you of things you need to get done.
9. Don’t forget advance prep tasks. For example, if you need to conduct a meeting, but have to prepare a deck first, be sure to include preparation time for materials needed to facilitate the meeting.
10. Outsource personal tasks. Outsourcing personal tasks to someone else using micro-help sites enables you to hire help when you need it, for anything you need, at any budget and duration. This can free up your time to focus on higher priority business tasks.

Aric Franzmeier is the founder of FlipTask, an online marketplace that is revolutionizing the way tasks and errands get done. Aric holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and was inspired to create FlipTask after seeing the economic downturn affect the job market particularly among college graduates. He launched FlipTask shortly after as a new way to help out the local community by bringing new jobs to the city and surrounding areas. Aric is a member of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce and the Boulder Independent Business Alliance.

© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.