How to plan to move things off your everything list and not let something stay on it forever

On my Facebook page I asked which topic you’d like to see covered and the winning topic was ideas for your “Everything” to-do list.

One question someone had was “how to actually plan to move things off of it and not just let something stay on it forever.”

First, let’s talk about what the “everything” list isn’t. It’s not something you look at every day. You look when you’re doing your planning for the week or any other planning you do (month, quarter, or year).

It holds your plans to reach your goals and intentions.

One mistake I made when I started using an “everything” list was making it simply a list of everything that needed to be done. Usually, I grouped it by project, which was helpful, but much like the woman asking the question above, some things never moved off of it.

To complete the items on your “everything” list, I recommend that you group your list by month and assign each task to a month. And anything that you’re not planning on doing in the next 6-12 months or ideas that you want to develop later go on your “later” list.

The next grouping is by week. Prefill your week with tasks or projects that recur monthly.

My monthly recurring tasks include:

• On the last week of each month, planning the upcoming month
• On the third week of each month, I select the quotes I’ll post to my business page, create the image, and schedule them.

​Create the prefilled week template for 5-6 months out. This allows you to add things to it as things come up, such as:

• reaching out to that person who said now isn’t a good time but to check in with them in 6 months
• sending your bio to that group you will be speaking to closer to your speaking date
• deciding if you’re going to move forward with an idea (yes, you can add decisions to your list too!) you had for later in the year

Assign these things to the month and week you’ll do them and not when they’re due (this gives you wiggle room).

When you do your monthly planning, map out the tasks you need to complete for each project or goal, and assign those tasks to weeks of the upcoming month.

Now, you’re set to create your weekly list. You cut and paste (or rewrite) the tasks you assigned for the upcoming week to this week, add the tasks you do every week, and the loose ends from last week. 

When your tasks are assigned to a specific week (or month if it’s happening much later), you’re much more likely to get it done.

There’s a lot of information packed in up there, so please leave a comment with any questions you have OR tell me if you have an “everything” list and how it’s set up.