Making to-do lists and crossing them off

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I don't know about you, but I am a total list maker.  I make lists for work tasks, volunteer tasks, blog tasks, home chores, grocery shopping, and well, the list goes on.  I probably should have a list for my lists. And inevitably, with all this list making can sometimes come the overwhelming feeling of having just one too many items on your lists... or maybe more like 50 too many items.  In this day and age, where we have so much technology that asks for our immediate attention (the blinking smartphone! the email pop-ups! the several instant messaging systems we keep open all day long!), it's more important than ever to prioritize.  I'm by no means an expert, but I found (via Ashley, an awesome blogger gf) some expert advice that I plan to put to practice this week.

It's called the "priority tag method", and it involves prioritizing your tasks in one of four categories:

A - urgent and important
B - important, but not urgent
C - urgent, but not important
D - not urgent or important

Now this is a concept I can latch onto.  The thought is that the items you mark with 'A's should be focused on first, then 'B's, and so on.  I like it because it forces you to distinguish between what's truly important versus what may falsely seem to be a priority because it's urgent.  If you've ever stopped doing something important to read an email that just popped up, my bet is this method could work for you too. :)

Interested in learning more?  Read the full article here.

Now I'm off to make my Monday to-do list and tag each item A-D... but before I do, any tips you have to keeping your to-do lists manageable?  Do share.

P.S ~ A cute daily to-do list template you can print via Life's a Journal.