magine your day starts with the following thoughts on your mind: Jeanie, the new boarder, doesn’t get along with others and needs to change her thinking if she wants to remain at the farm. Your busiest instructor was hurt yesterday and won’t be able to teach for a week. The feed quality of your local mill has been slipping; moldy feed has been a problem on and off for the past twelve weeks. Your estimated income tax deposit is due in two days. Your business marketing plan includes a display ad in a local publication and the deadline for the copy is tomorrow.
Sound like it could be a normal day in your life as a professional horseman?
You already know that in the horse business and all other businesses, getting things done each day is critical for business growth and success.
And you already know that organizing your daily schedule to accomplish all of these tasks is a struggle.
Experience tells me that the methods of organizing the tasks for the day vary greatly from:
- no written plan- rely on semi-reliable memory systems
- a scrap piece of paper
- a one page to do list
- a detailed computer program listing all tasks at hand and charting the progress toward completion.
All of the systems have advantages and disadvantages, so what is the best method?
A one page to-do list completed daily.
If you are using one already, congratulations, pat yourself on the back, stop reading this and move on to tackle another item on the list
If you’re a little foggy about the purpose of a to do list, here are some tips:
- It should be created every day adding and removing tasks.
- The list may be hand written or printed on a single sheet in a daily planner or on an index card or on a folded 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper.
- Daily action items are for current actions,not for reminders about planning future activity. The current actions have a sense of urgency like concrete that has to be poured and leveled today.
- Items are broken down into the simplest activity. Like: make phone call, complete report, lead staff meeting. . . .
As you construct the daily to do list, ask yourself these questions:
- Is this item the best use of my time?
- Is there someone I can delegate this task to?
- Do I really have to do this or what will happen if I just toss it?
Your daily to do list is more than a reminder; it also serves as a contract with yourself to get things done every day.