Dear ,

Christmas is around the corner. Do you remember what were we told to do growing up during this season? You were asked to make a list of what you want and put it in a stocking. Depending on your behaviour - good or bad, Santa would find it and you will get something from the list.

It was a practice we did to make kids behave themselves in anticipation of a gift for being good next year. Somehow I feel we are stuck to it as adults too.

We want to be our best self, and not necessarily because of our strife towards self improvement. It’s also because we want to tick off on being good this year, tick off doing things the right way, tick off doing things every day, tick off everything that was on the list.

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Lists. They serve a very simple purpose- to help organise our thoughts.

As long as we keep lists to that, it’s all good.

The minute you let lists define your productivity, you’re doomed.

There might be so many things on your plate to finish today, can you take 5 minutes now and write everything you’ve done so far and everything you need to do in the remaining day.

Now look at any to-do list you might have prepared a few days ago. Chances are there are atleast 5 things you didn’t plan on your list but you ended up doing them today!

And honestly, there’s no control how your day is going to look like regardless of how many ever lists you create, on how many ever apps.

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Whether you are starting off with creating to-do lists or someone who has multiple of these on your phone/laptop, lists scattered everywhere; here’s an easy tool I’ve introduced to our team at Enterprise India Fellowship to help us prioritise and not feel bogged down by lists:

On a fresh piece of paper or your notes app, write:

3 small things you need to COMPLETE this week.

2 ongoing things you’ve started working on, and you need to CONTINUE but they might not get done by the end of the week.

1 big thing you need to CONCENTRATE this week.

Why week?

Because this will push you to prioritise what you really need to focus your energy on this week. I’m 100% confident if you have a zoomed out view of the week, your Saturday night won’t go by thinking "what a shitty week, I had so much to get done, but I’m not even halfway through".

You’ll sleep in peace, trust me. And so will your productivity apps.

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Once you’ve pushed and prioritised what needs to get done this week, now is the time to make smaller to-do lists everyday. These daily to-do lists will be the breakdown of tasks for your 3-2-1, and any other smaller things that you could not capture in the 3-2-1 (which inevitably will happen).

As a practice, make sure for each thing you need to get done you’ve broken it down to smaller tasks in your to-do list. And then start ticking off one task at a time. In no time, you’ll see how you were able to tick off your big things on 3-2-1.

And since we’re almost close to Christmas, maybe give Santa only 3-2-1 list so he can choose better. And either way, you’ll win.