Steps to The IDEAL checklist

Change the way you write your checklists

We are working on checklists all the time — writing a plan at the beginning of our day or making a step-by-step taxonomy that can be used for redundant/ sequential tasks or, simply making a list of items for grocery shopping.

We do not want to forget any little thing or be inefficient. Checklists keep us on track and can be of high utility to perform tasks with high precision and efficiency. They help us break our tasks into smaller manageable chunks and make our workday productive. I, too, love to use checklists to stay on task and be organized.

A few months ago I started to note my pattern of feeling anxious and unaccomplished every night because I wasn’t meeting my work goals mentioned on my daily checklist. My checklists were becoming lengthier due to pending tasks from previous days. I also added every unnecessary mini task for my day to that list, making it too crowded and long for me to follow. I started to draw pleasure from crossing out the unnecessary tasks, leaving behind the bigger and more important chunks. All of this, together, leading to a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I was working for the checklist instead of the checklist working for me. I decided to change the way I was creating checklists and this change has been a pleasant one.

Following are the steps that worked for me. I call it the IDEAL checklist:

Create an Idea farm: List down everything that you plan to accomplish [after regular practice, this step can be skipped].

Declutter the long list: Remove unnecessary items from the list above. Needless items can create confusion about what needs to be done and what doesn’t and can be mind-boggling to process all at once.

Identify Essentials: Sort them into three categories based on urgency/ importance- High, medium, low. This group can help in grabbing your selective attention.

Make Accessible: Keep it short — between five to nine items. Write in legible…

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