What Should Not Go Onto Your To-Do List

This week, what should be going on your to-do list and what should not.   You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Email Mastery 2021 Course Download the FREE Areas of Focus Workbook More about the Time Sector System The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Episode 187 Hello and welcome to episode 187 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. So, what exactly should you be putting on your to-do list? This might seem an obvious answer, but I can tell you it is not.  When you put a lot of the wrong things into a task manager, you will become overwhelmed with tasks you have no intention of doing because they mean nothing to you and they’ve been hanging around in there for years.  This week, I will explain what should be in there and what you should not be putting in there. Now before we go any further, over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a number of videos over on my YouTube channel around the difficult subject of prioritisation. It can be very hard to pick the right things to work on when there is so much being thrown at us.  One part of your life that should always be a priority is your goals. If you are not working on your goals, you’ll be unconsciously working on someone else’s goals. That could be your boss’s or the shareholders of the company you work for and that is never going to work for you long-term Now, as we enter the post-pandemic world, would be a great time to re-evaluate your goals, ensure they are clear, that you have a strong, personal reason for achieving them and a definite action plan. And to help you with that, I have completely updated my Time And Life Mastery course The 2021 edition of Time And Life Mastery will not only show you how to turn your goals (and dreams) into reality, it will also get you to think deeper about what you want and give you the strategy to make sure you have the time to work on them every day using the Time Sector System. Don’t get left behind, start today and build your goals into the heart of your daily to-do list. Joining the course now will give you an early-bird discount of 20%.  Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Debbie. Debbie asks, Hi Carl, I’ve noticed in your YouTube videos that you don’t have many tasks on your to-do list. I have hundreds of tasks and I can’t help feeling I am doing something wrong. Is there a reason why you don’t put many tasks in there?  Hi Debbie, Thank you for your question. Your task list is all about elimination, not accumulation and I feel that is where so many people go wrong.  The biggest mistake I see people making is putting tasks into their task manager that should not be there. Now, I think this comes from a misunderstanding about what a task manager does.  Let me explain it this way. Your task manager is there to trigger you to do the things that need doing. For instance, complete a presentation file, work on a client proposal or prepare for a management meeting. It is not there for individual follow-ups, email replies and phone calls.  Now, I can hear expressions of outrage as I say that but hear me out.  Let me take emails as an example. Email comes into your email app’s inbox. And inside your email app, you have space to create folders to hold your important emails. In a way, your email app is a to-do list itself. You can create a folder called “action this day” for any email that requires action (replying, reading and reviewing or acting on). If you send your actionable email to your task manager you have just du