Managing Your To-Do List
Most people have a love-hate relationship with their to-do lists.
You love the idea of being more organized and you write out all the things you need to do that week in a pretty printable you found on Pinterest. And when Monday comes around, you look over your list and wonder what to do first and when you’ll find the time to fit into your schedule.
That’s about the time the hate sets in. Those empty checkboxes stare at you, like they’re mocking you for even trying to use a different color pen to help you be more efficient with your list.
By Wednesday, you’ve crossed off three things on your list. And when Sunday rolls around, you print out another pretty sheet and move everything from last week’s list into this week’s. You re-read the blog post where you found the printable to make sure you’re doing this right.
“This time,” you tell yourself. “I’ll work through this thing this week.”
Friday comes, only two things get crossed off and you toss it into the trash.
{ stupid list }
The problem isn’t the stuff on your list or the way that the printable was set up. It’s about learning what you can realistically get done and finding the time to fit it into your schedule.
Let’s start from the beginning
What exactly is a task on your to-do list? The simple answer is that it’s an actionable item that needs to be done to help you to reach your goals { ie increase your sales, create more website traffic or grow your followers }.
If you’re looking to grow your followers, just writing the task ‘posting on Facebook’ isn’t going to help you get this one crossed off your to-do list. Post what on Facebook? Post where and when on Facebook?
The actionable items on your to-do list need to break down the steps of what needs to happen to post on Facebook:
- Pull together your Facebook fan page content calendar for this week
- Create image quotes or tips to post on your fan page
- Take your content links and images and schedule them on Facebook
Breaking down your tasks into smaller steps make it easier for you to schedule them into your week. You know what you need to work on to contribute to your goal of growing your Facebook followers.
Why you need to have a Task Management process for your social sites
Task management is creating a system to help you learn what to do on your list and how you can fit that into your schedule. It’s not anything complicated that requires you sign up for an expensive online program.
It’s simply, the way you work your through your to-do list.
There’s a ton of systems that can help you sort through this process. I’ve tried a few of them and because I’m part visual person and part digital, I’ll share with you the steps that seem to work the best for me to power through my social media marketing to-do list.
Step 1: Make a list
Make a list and get that stuff out of your head.
Your first list is usually more of a braindump where there’s no order or priority to what comes first. It’s just a place to write or type out all your thoughts and ideas.
You can use a printable with highlighters, a word document or a online app like Evernote. The idea isn’t to worry about what you’re using as long as you take this first step to get it all out and into one place.
Since I’m a visual person, I set up my white board in my office as the place to lay out all the work I needed to do to grow my social sites. Each social site was assigned a different color post-in note: Facebook was blue, Pinterest was yellow, Twitter was light grey and Instagram became the darker grey notes.
Each post-it note had a different action item that I needed to do that for that social program. I grouped each together by color, not by order of importance.
Step 2: Organize your list
Once they were all up on my board, I was able to get the full picture of what I needed to do for each site. After I reviewed all the notes, I was then able to decide which items were the most important ones that I needed to work on.
Now it’s time to get serious about prioritizing your action items. If growing your Facebook presence is a top priority in your social marketing then doing some research on how to start Periscoping is most likely going to be pushed down to the bottom of your list.
Then put them into three categories: To Do, Work in Progress and Done
All of your action items first go into the To Do list. When you start working on one of them, move it to the Work in Progress area. And when it’s ready to be crossed off your list, shift it on over to the Done section.
{ If you’re more of a digital person than a visual one, try using Trello. It’s set up exactly like my white board but in a digital format. }
Step 3: Schedule into your week
Now you know what you need to do so schedule these into your planner for the week. I tried to start with five of the things on my list but I found that my week could only handle three of the action items on my board.
How did I figure out that I could only manage adding in three things? I worked through the steps of something I call a Task Tracking worksheet.
The Task Tracking worksheet can help you evaluate the stuff you do every week. This process lets you see how long things really take so you know what you can honestly add into your schedule.
To use the Task Tracking worksheet, follow these steps:
1. List the top things you’re working on with your social marketing. Think of this like your master social media to-do list.
2. If the items have several steps, use the next section to list out a breakdown of your action items.
3. Now spend the next week tracking yourself doing these tasks. Write down the time it actually takes from the start of your item until you can honestly cross that off your list.
4. Take notes if you need to in the Notes section. I find it helps to note if I had to come back to finish something the next day or if I needed to another step before this one.
5. In the next section, write out your top action items you need to work on that week to help you grow your business. Include the time it takes to do each item and include a priority number next to each item.
6. Now schedule those items into your planner and block off the time it’ll take to really and honestly get those things done.
When I worked the steps, I discovered that it takes me about 30 minutes to do my Twitter post updates for a week. So when I have a 30 minute pocket of time, I know it’s enough time to get my tweets scheduled.
I now know how long this action item takes so every week, I get to cross Twitter scheduled off my to-do list and my account has tweets to share with my followers.
Find what works for you
My last bit of advice for you is this – Don’t worry if you’re not using a white board and post-it notes like I do. You can always create your own system in a way that works for you.
If you decide to go and create your own task management system, just remember these basic things to make it work:
- It needs to be easy to keep up with it – the more it fits your work style, the greater chances you have of staying with it.
- There needs to be an order to your steps – just writing things out and picking something is what got you here in the first place.
- Be able to add new tasks – as you keep working through this process, you’ll think of more things you want to add to your marketing plans.
Over time you’ll learn to recognize which tasks are more of a priority than others. You’ll start to see how long it takes to do these things and which ones you can add into your weekly schedule to help reach your social goals.
And when you find something that works, you’ll get more done and you’ll start to love your to-do list again.
Want to be more productive?
Imagine being so productive, you’ve checked off everything on your social media marketing to-do list. You’ve increased your social presence so much that you’re connecting to new people every day who want to buy your stuff.
The Social Media Productivity Planner will introduce you to a new way of managing your social media marketing so you can get new followers, show up more consistently online and grow your social presence to get more clients.
It’s the starting point you’ll need to build and implement an effective social media strategy. You’ll learn what to do, what site to log into and exactly what to do when you have a 30 – 60 minute chunk of time in your schedule.
Click here to grab your copy of the Social Media Productivity Planner!
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