Piles of sticky notes, several different pads of paper and notebooks – keeping track of everything you have to do can be hard. Lists help.
Why do lists work so well? One reason is because when you capture your intentions on a single page you gain clarity: finally, it’s all there in front of you. But there are two other reasons why list-making helps you get more done and feel better at the same time. First, using a list frees up working memory. This means that not only do you feel better because your list helps you remember what you have to do, you actually THINK better in the meantime because your brain isn’t overwhelmed. This think/feel better experience is further strengthened if you deliberately start every item on your list with an action verb. Articulating what you have to do with a verb produces positive neurotransmitters (making you feel better) and directs blood to the pre-frontal cortex, priming you to think more effectively.
Using verbs to start each item on your list will also make it easier for you to see patterns of tasks that you need to schedule time for, and will make it easier to pluck items from the list when you get an unexpected free moment and want to get a few things done quickly. Last but not least, the clearer you are at articulating the action verb, the easier it will be to see what can be delegated.
Give it a try. And let me know how you feel and how you perform once you’ve transformed all those sticky notes and loose scraps of paper into a working action list.