Let’s face it, unless you’re working on an assembly line, your job requires you to multi-task and juggle many balls at once. If you’re like me, you probably have more things to keep track of than your productive mind can handle alone (in my case, that’s whenever I have more than two things at once). You resort to keeping track of your to-do’s in multiple places: emails, notebooks, to-do lists, and asking Aaron sitting next to you to remind you of the blog post you have to write. I’ve found the solution is effective task tracking and efficient time management. It sounds easy, sure, but how…?

The first step is managing your tasks well. I get my “to-do’s” from multiple sources: conversations, email, phone calls, thoughts. It doesn’t matter where you keep track of them, but most importantly is to track what you have to do in a central location that you like to use. You don’t want a list telling you where your other lists are located. I like using Excel (see below) where I can track various information and easily sort related items. The trick is making sure you actually capture everything you need to do; I note down everything, even if it’s small. Once you have the tasks in a central place (regardless of the medium it came in through), you can then begin processing items.

I have worked with many people who have difficulties with time management and whittling down their to-do list. A long list is often overwhelming to the point where people spend more time stressing about the number of things that have to get done rather than actually getting things done. Quick tasks are easy enough to cross off the list, but where people often struggle is with tasks that take more than a few minutes. For these bigger items, I like to schedule time on my calendar to dedicate to getting things done. It may be 30 minutes to do multiple short tasks, or it may be two hours to complete a financial model; make the effort to set aside some time dedicated to specific tasks.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to do good work quickly. Breaking up tasks into manageable chunks and setting aside time to work on them, however, does help manage your work more effectively and helps ensure things don’t slip through the cracks.

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