Breaking your to-do list down into one-hour tasks

I want you to take a quick look at your daily or weekly to do list.

Are there any tasks on there that will take more than one hour?

Yes? You’re not alone.

I see it so many times — people create a task that takes a long time and they never get to cross it off the list.

Let’s look at the example of writing a blog post.

Let’s say you spend some time today doing research, but you don’t finish the task, so you don’t get to cross anything off.

Tomorrow you do some writing, but again — not finished, so nothing to cross off.

You look at what you accomplished for those days and don’t feel great because it seems like you didn’t get much done.

It may take you the rest of the week to get that blog post finished and out the door.

I propose that you break that task down into several one-hour tasks.
Hour 1: Research
Hour 2: Start writing
Hour 3: Finish writing
Hour 4: Edit
Hour 5: Publish and promote

Now you can more effectively schedule these tasks on your calendar AND feel good about making progress during the week.

Look at your to do list again. What large tasks can you break down into smaller tasks?

Originally posted on LinkedIn.