Preparing for 2011 by Prioritizing Tasks

The beginning of 2011 is very close by and I see people creating there New Year’s Resolutions.

I was reading Keep Your Resolutions To Yourself written by  @rdempsey and It really got me thinking on how people create lists of things they want to accomplish for the next year. For the most part resolutions end up being wishes because of lack of action.

I personally keep many lists of things to do. I use various Tools such as software to manage my tasks to simple post it notes posted everywhere in my office.

How do I attempt to  accomplish most of the ideas that come to my mind?

Once and idea pop’s up (which later might become a task or a goal) I write it on a post it note, my smartphone, ipad, or a simple txt document on my computer.  Writing it down helps me to stay focus on the task at hand and limits the amount of interruptions that I create when handling each project or large task.

I try to organize the tasks I quickly determine in what current or future Project am I adding the task  to.

Once I assigned it to a bunch of tasks related to a Project  I keep track of the progress (When I can’t find a Project I have a separate bunch of ideas which I categorize as future projects or ideas).

During the day whenever I have a break I go over my tasks. If I am dealing with a large Project and all of the sudden I hit a wall in proceeding with it I quickly scan my tasks and try to identify a sample task I can do in a short time.  By shifting my attention to a small task in many ocassions it allows me to come back and have a better idea to continue with the much larger job at hand.

For 2011, I have some tasks, lists, and goals that are a mix of projects I have been trying to start, continue, or complete from as far back as 10 months to a few days ago.

It is my experience that I always want to do many things but other things get priotized over them. I periodically at least once a week evaluate if I gave the right things the correct priority.

By doing these daily, weekly, and monthly checks it keeps me on track of accomplishing many more things than just writing a list at the start of the year and waiting a whole year to evaluate what I want to do the next.

What are your goals for the new year?

How many things did you want to start, continued, or stop from the previous year?

How do you prioritize your tasks and goals?