As an adult, responsibilities may seem to pile on by the day. We have bills to pay, work to do, chores to complete, etc. There are different ways to organize these responsibilities but nothing compares to a good old “To-Do" list. It is a quick and simple way to organize your tasks, but without proper management, it can do more harm than good. You can easily find yourself looking at a list that you had all the intentions of completing that instead ended up on the backburner.

Your To-Do list should not be overwhelming or you will run into the issue of not getting any of the items on it done. In order to avoid this, think about how you want to prioritize your tasks. Most things can fall into either large or small tasks. If not, simplify what you’re trying to do in order to make it more manageable.

Larger tasks typically require more than one day to complete. To make them seem easier, break it up into smaller, daily objectives. Be realistic in how much time you give yourself. Something like cleaning your entire house is a larger task that will probably need to be spread over two weeks, for example. A significant amount of days would need to be spent getting to each and every room in your house as opposed to tackling learning how to swim. Something like this would probably have to be spread over several months instead of weeks. You’d need to dedicate a few hours a week for a significant amount of months.

Smaller tasks can usually be tackled in a day and can either be a part of a larger objective or completed as a one time thing. These can include things such as washing the dishes, picking up groceries, and remembering to take your vitamins. Again, think about what you can reasonably accomplish. It’s easy to tack on a million little tasks for the day, but you’d be more productive by focusing on quality and not quantity. Whatever you don’t get to, just move it over to the next day.

It’s equally important to have a reliable place to keep all of your tasks recorded. For some it’s a pad and paper, a whiteboard on the fridge, or a running list on a cell phone. There are even apps to help you out such as those mentioned in this article . Whatever it is, make sure to keep it all in one place. Having too many places where you keep all of your to-dos can easily reveal inconsistencies. It becomes tough to accurately update them all. On the other hand, if you can make sure to keep all of your lists up to date, having it in several places can actually keep you accountable and less likely to forget about what you need to do .