Correct use of jobs to do lists…. this is important!
Often there are things that are too big to contemplate, so you put them off, but actually the first step would be quick and easy. It’s all about thinking what is the first step, and putting just THAT on your list.
For example: Booking a holiday.
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-07-03-at-10.48.51.png)
Size: the holiday is big, but the first step could be small: e.g. just choosing when you are going to go, and then seeing if there is availability.
Urgency: the whole holiday probably isn’t urgent, yet, but booking it might be, as places sell out.
Fun: the holiday is of course fun, but booking it probably isn’t.
Importance: I would say that holidays ARE important, since they are a big contributor to your happiness (when you look back on your year they are one of the biggest things you remember), but booking the holiday is not important. Yes it has to be done, but you want to do it in the minimum time, delegate it if you can, it’s not what life’s about – so it’s actually NOT important. The holiday itself is the reverse – you DO want to maximise the time you spend on it, it IS what life is all about, it IS the kind of thing you’ll be glad you spent your time on when you look back on your life.
Every time, the first step is different to the whole thing.
This is important, because if you start thinking that a job is big when it’s not, you’ll procrastinate it. Or if you think it’s not urgent when it is, or you think it’s not important when it is, you’ll make the wrong decisions about what to do next.
So for everything, for example when you’re thinking “Is fixing my roof a big or small thing, urgent or not, important or not, fun or not” remember that it’s the first step, phoning up a roof company for a price, that you should be thinking about, not the fixing of the roof itself.
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/image-28.png)
PS – I realised this when I started using my jobs-to-do app, which is free and brilliant – check it out on the IOS app store or google play store!
![](https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-07-03-at-11.00.52.png)
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