This is Stevea Robbins. Welcome to the Get It Done guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

To-do lists are awesome. They really are. They're so awesome that you can collect dozens of them, all different types.

There are to-do lists written on sticky notes. To-do lists in notebooks. To-do lists scribbled on napkins.

And then there are computers. And the to-do lists typed into memos. The to-do lists in to-do lists and notebooks, to-do lists scribbled on napkins, and then there are computers.

And the to-do lists typed into memos, the to-do lists in to-list apps that you downloaded and used for a week.

Yes, life is overflowing with to-do lists.

In episode 171, How to Create One Master System to Organize Your Life, we saw that using one master system, just one,

can help put the genie of chaos back into the magic lamp of order. It's Friday. It's been a long

week. My ability to cook up good metaphors is as sour as a week-long trip to a pickle factory.

I should probably stop while I'm ahead. In short, by replacing the dozens of to-do lists with a single long list, you'll solve the problem of having dozens of lists.

You'll have one place where you know you can find your tasks.

Chaos solved.

Sort of.

Having one master list solves the problem of scattering their to-do lists far and wide, but there's still a dastardly problem lurking beneath the surface, and that's accumulation. Over time, you add things to the

list, and then your priorities change, or you get interrupted, or your dog eats your homework,

and even though an item is done or no longer relevant, you forget to remove it from your list,

and then given a few weeks or months, your list is no longer very accurate you forget to remove it from your list. And then given a few

weeks or months, your list is no longer very accurate. It has stuff that's been done, it has stuff

that you no longer need to do, and of course it has stuff that society expects you to do,

but you really don't want to do. Yay for individuality, you go, you. To keep your system working

smoothly, start doing a weekly review of your task list. In a weekly

review, you'll do a spring cleaning of your task list, only it's weekly, and you'll do it in all

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