Many a times we either forget an activity / task or something else catches our attention in that day.

This could potentially lead to work dissatisfaction. In other words, your work satisfaction could directly be impacted by “how the day was spent”.

Few statements below can be related in the above context: 

“I am unhappy with the day work”
“I had an unproductive day”
“I did nothing that was interesting”
“I felt a day had more than 24 hours”
“My work is getting piled up in addressing to my boss’s request”
“My to-do list is getting longer”
“Client handling takes most of my time”
“Cannot avoid escalations! They have to be addressed, even at the cost of my planned work.”

Mr. Daljit Rana says “one feels satisfied when he or she has completed what was planned for the day. The work satisfaction would also depend on how the day was ended!”. I liked what Mr. Daljit said.

What if we break our planning horizon to a small unit such as “a day” or “a week”? In most cases stated above, a good to-do-list could solve the issue.

In a dynamic environment, a to-do-list often fails. We may end up doing something that was not in the list and this often gives us an impression either our plan failed or planning does not work!

It is important to try creating a to-do-list once more. And this time, a realistic one.

Here are few things that has helped me create a to-do-list that is realistic:

  1. Create a to-do list – for “a day” or for “a week” – chose your unit.
  2. Plan for only 50 % of your available time in a day.
  3. The remaining time can be kept aside for unplanned activities such as requests from boss, client, escalations and any other activities such as new issues. 
  4. Verify end-of-the-day with this list, analyze and improve next day!

Remember, a day has only 24 hours. You will have to work with this constraint. Identify how much can you chew in a day. I like the quote below:

Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.

Author: Raghuraman Kadambi
Proofreading by: Hemalata K. K.

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