Effective List Building Tips to Achieve High-Performance

List building is a powerful and underutilized technique to manage projects and prioritize tasks to maximize your time, gain efficiencies, and achieve focus. As a manager, you may find that too much time is spent working on multiple projects, doing a little on each, and feeling like none of them are moving forward.

You can use lists to help you overcome that feeling of not getting anything done by organizing your thoughts and time and setting priorities that focus you and get you moving forward positively.

Recommended List Building Tools

So, what tools do I recommend for building lists? Microsoft Office products such as Word or One Note can be used for list building, though I have found that there are much more effective tools for than these typical software products. 

Three of my favorite list building apps are Google Keep, Evernote, and Workflowy. The reason I prefer these three over Microsoft Office products is that they offer more robust features such as syncing between multiple devices, the ability to easily share with others, mobile device friendly, and the ability to organize numerous lists under specific notebooks. I also find that One Note is clunky in its presentation and challenging to keep projects separated.

Whatever tool you choose make sure that it works for you. Don't pick one based just on my or someone else's recommendation. Try each one and see what has the best presentation to fit your needs. In future posts, I will look at each of these apps in more detail.

Keys to Effective List Building

What are the keys to building a useful list? First,  make sure you keep a separate notebook for each project that you are working on and that you create them within the same app so you can easily access all of your lists in one place. Also, keep one master list that helps you to stay focused on each project that makes the status of each project easy to assess.

Second, when you begin to put a list together don’t worry about having priorities in the correct order. Just write down all the things you need to accomplish on each project within your records. Once you have all your preferences listed out, you can go back and rearrange them in logical order as to the level of priority.

I like to use numbered lists because it is easy to go back and add a priority, or move the order around and get a quick visual of how many items I have and their importance by number. Additionally, you can highlight items designating a different priority level according to color for an even better visual gauge.

Third, I recommend as items get completed that you strike them out rather than deleting them. You may also find it helpful to put a date completed behind the finished line.  Doing this will give you a record of completed tasks if you need to go back and verify what you accomplished. Alternately, if you have a performance management system, or need to report to your manager where you are at on a given project, this will provide facts to show what you accomplished during the year.  Keeping a list is an excellent reference for future planning.

Fourth, create sub-lists under numbered items in your list if a task has multiple little tasks that must be accomplished. Your list should be the more significant steps and the smaller steps. Breaking a substantial goal down into smaller steps will help you manage it without feeling overwhelmed.

Fifth, put due dates next to list items to keep you on task. High-performance tip - copy the list item and add it as a Google or Outlook calendar item and then set up reminders for accomplishing it.

Conclusion

List building once formed into a consistent habit helps maintain focus and give direction to your everyday work. Creating a prioritized list will help you focus your energies on what is most important because you have it written down in front of you. You won’t waste your time trying to decide between multiple priorities because you will have already made a conscious decision as to what tasks are most important and in which order to accomplish them. Lists also give you the flexibility to add and reprioritize when new priorities present themselves. They also give you a place to track your progress and show achievement.

By making list-building a daily habit, you will find yourself more focused on value-added activities. It will make you more effective in accomplishing goals instead of putting out fires. Finally, it will help you map out your success and focus on what is essential.