How are you capturing all of the tasks you need to complete?

In my last video, I talked about getting everything out of your head – essentially doing a “brain dump” of all of the things you have to accomplish. At some point, you’ll need to prioritize all of these to-dos and get them into your workflow, but for now, what we’re working on is creating a system for capturing all of those to-dos so that you’re confident that they are being processed and you don’t need to keep them all in your head.

Getting Started: Categorize

Take a look at that long list of to-dos that you made and start to put them into categories. Think not only about what type of task it is, but also about how it arose – how did you become aware that this was an item that needed to be completed? What was the triggering event for that task?

• Is it a new case that needs to be opened?
• A potential new client inquiry to be addressed?
• Was it an email request that you received from someone? Is it a piece of mail or a telephone call?
• Is it a task that needs to be completed on a regular basis, such as sending out monthly invoices or
• Is it a task that relates to an existing matter that occurs in the normal workflow of your cases?

Once you have a better understanding of where your tasks come from, and how frequently you receive tasks in this manner, you can create systems to ensure that those tasks are captured and added to your workflow more strategically. I’ll give you an example of how this works in my next video.

If you want help creating systems to capture your to-dos, please contact me.

For more on productivity, check out these articles and videos:

• Using Canva’s Bulk Create Feature
• How Posting Checklists Can Help Your Marketing
• How to Auto-Archive Email
• De-Clutter Your Email Inbox
• Publish Content Consistently with an Editorial Calendar
• 3 Things to Do For a Productive New Year
• 5 Tips for Improving Your Email Messages
• Improving Your Email Communication
• Delegating Tasks to Technology
• Do You Have Plans and Goals for the Future?