How I Structure My Daily Tasks in Just 5 Minutes

Work gets busy, sometimes seriously so. And there are days — I know I’ve had them — when the pile of things you need to get through is so high, you simply don’t know where to start.

And that’s a problem. Because, to slightly state the obvious, without knowing where to start, you’re far less likely to actually get started.

I’ve found this to be particularly prevalent in smaller start-up and scale-up companies where there will always exist far more demands than people to tackle them.

Which leads me to a question I’ve long pondered: what’s the optimal order for tackling items on the to-do list? A (quasi)algorithmic way of ranking your tasks, bypassing the monkey mind and getting things ticked off.

If such an algorithm exists, I’ve yet to find it.

So, in its absence, I’ve incorporated advice from some of the world’s best-known gurus on the subject to hack one together for myself. It takes me five minutes to complete every morning, after which I just… well… get going!

And here it is.

*Before we start*

This ought to go without saying but, before you start prioritising your tasks, you must first get into a good groove around capturing to-do items.