Make a task list to manage your time efficiently

Many time management systems encourage you to waste time. Here's a simple way to spend timemore wisely.

Unfortunately, most time management is involves "to do" lists, which tend to treat the 20% of your work that really matters as equal to the 80% of things that don't. Having a simple list of things to do almost forces you to waste time doing stuff that doesn't really count.

That's true even if you prioritize according to importance. Plenty of important things take so much effort that, in the end, they're not worth actually doing.

Here's how to use the Pareto Principle to manage your time more effectively.

When you make a "to do" list, prioritize each item by the amount of effort required (1 to 10, with 1 being the least amount of effort) and the potential positive results (1 to 10, with 10 being the highest impact.)

Now divide the potential results by the amount of effort to get a "priority" ranking. Do theitems with the lowest resulting priority number first. Here's a simple example:

Task 1: Write report on trip meeting.
Effort=10, Result=2, Priority=5

Task 2: Prepare presentation for marketing.
Effort=4, Result=4, Priority=1

Task 3: Call current customer about referral.
Effort=1, Result=10, Priority=0.1

See your new priority-based order?
You do Task 3 first, Task 2 second, and Task 1 last–ifat all.

This simple method ensures that the 20% of your effort that really makes a differencealways gets done first. As for the 80% that doesn't really matter, it's automaticallypostponed, and possibly tabled forever.
I know this all sounds pretty simple; even simplistic. However, I can tell you from mypersonal experience that there has been nothing–and I mean nothing–that has added to mypersonal productivity than this kind of prioritization.