17+ Printable To-Do List and Task List Templates

It is not easy to maintain your productivity at work and excellently manage your entire personal duties. If you lack a clear picture of what you need to accomplish, you are likely to be least bothered regarding the completion timeline. Therefore, you must take your time and create your daily to-do list.

Furthermore, this template will enable you to make the best every day. It makes you aware of what you need to accomplish without any worries. Most people love this template because it makes them experience more achievements and fewer distractions. Ensure you use your daily to-do list to capture the chores you need to finish on a particular day of the week.

What is a Daily To-Do List?

A daily list is a common method of managing each day’s task. Many people usually use this list to ensure their workload flows systematically. You can use it for a work project, house chores, and any opportunity you find. A daily to do list is usually created using many digital tools, such as Microsoft, Google, and Excel.

What Is a Daily To-Do List Template?

A daily to-do list template is a document designed to assist you in keeping track of your entire tasks, such as grocery lists, school assignments, daily chores at home, and work projects.

Daily To-Do List Templates & Examples

    Why Use a Daily To-Do List Template?

    A daily to-do list gives you control of the day. Furthermore, it offers you the discipline and structure you require to make your working days more productive. If you create a daily schedule, you are likely to accomplish your work efficiently. You must know that a daily to-do list is predictable, and it minimizes decision fatigue since it does not leave you with the hassle of deciding the task you should handle next. And this helps you to keep your mental energy level where necessary.

    Tips to Create a Daily To-Do List

    Below is an overview of seven practical tips you need to implement to create your daily to-do list:

    Create time for things that will likely cause you distraction

    Suppose you spend a lot of your time on social media platforms. You must conquer with me that these platforms sometimes cause you a massive distraction because they make you unable to complete critical tasks. However, without a doubt, there is nothing wrong with you going through your social media platforms but first things first.

    Creating a daily to-do list will assist you in coming up with time to accomplish your essential task. Bear in mind that this includes a time frame for you to go through your social media platform and respond to tweets and emails. Ensure that you treat these platforms similar to other tasks on your template. With this, you will avoid significant distractions.

    Select the most important task

    Some activities are not likely to elevate you towards your goals, such as responding to emails, attending a meeting, and receiving phone calls. Remember, such things are inevitable and also unavoidable. Thus, you must ensure that they do not hinder what you need to accomplish each day by featuring them in your daily plans. Every day when you initiate your schedule, consider your primary goals by designating the most important tasks (MIT) for every specific day.

    Once you figure out what you need to finish to stay on the safer side, you will probably create minimal time on non-beneficial tasks. You must find out which times of the day you are usually productive and use them to accomplish your most essential tasks. And avoid less demanding tasks like answering calls. During your unproductive hours, you can confidently respond to emails and calls. Remember always to schedule your MITs before any other thing.

    Include the morning routine

    Your individual rhythm determines your morning alarm since everyone has their own time to arise and shine each day. Some prefer waking up as early as 4 am to start their day, while some in the evening and others in the afternoon. It does not matter at what time you commence your day; just ensure you include your morning routine in your daily to-do list.

    In addition, what you do in the morning gives the rest of the day a tone. If you start with your social media platform, you will find it difficult to engage and focus and end up wasting the day because laziness will hit you bad. However, if you wake up, pray, make your bed, eat healthy every morning, and meditate, your brain will automatically pivot to a productive mode. And your day would have commenced with a very good mood to cheer you up the whole day. Besides, what you do in the morning determines how your day will end. Ensure that it is something aligning you with your entire personal values that makes you ready for the duties awaiting you ahead.

    Give your values a priority

    Most successful individuals usually prioritize their values. Their lives are designed deliberately to suit the vital things they value. Without much ado, before you develop the to-do list, you must define anything you value. Furthermore, this will assist you in value priorities that enhance your work-life balance and help you ultimately organize your work. When creating your template, ensure you prioritize your values and let your list have an order. You must understand that personal priorities protect what you value from slipping off your template and finally in the margins.

    Utilize your daily schedule template

    Your daily schedule template will make your day easier. The free downloadable templates assist you in scheduling the day and managing your time. These includes:

    • Distraction list- This list helps you get rid of distractions, especially when something comes up when you are working. Suppose you experience such incidences. Ensure you jot them on this sheet, and this will help you to get over distractions and focus on the task ahead of you.
    • Project template- It can be very difficult to work on big projects. However, using this template, you can easily manage this by dividing your projects into small chunks. This template will help you to finish your project on time.
    • Weekly goals template- You can easily set efficient goals for your week with this template, therefore, before you start your week. It is appropriate to ensure you identify what you need to achieve come the end of the week.
    • Daily to-do list template- Use this template for your daily activities. It assists you in scheduling your daily activities, setting deadlines to accomplish your tasks, and setting priorities.

    Avoid multitasking completely

    According to statistics, multitasking makes individuals deliver poor performance. Engaging in two tasks at a go can be hectic and tiresome, and instead of doing your tasks right, you might end up making more errors. This means multitasking has never worked for many people. Thus, when making your daily to-do list, you must remember to accomplish a single task without trying to fix anything else at that particular time.

    You must also understand that your brain does not easily adapt to new work faster. And that is why you might find it challenging to switch between tasks. To void this struggle, ensure that each task has got its own time, and you will work productively without wasting your time.

    Include breaks in your schedule

    At least try and schedule breaks such as an hour break for lunch and 10 to 15 minutes for meditating or strolling. Remember, you cannot work continuously at full steam, and even if you do, you will not experience awesome productivity. Creating breaks in your daily work schedule enhances your potential to think strategically and creatively. Remember, for your brain to develop fresh ideas, you must offer it a change of scenery during break times. Ensure that your daily to-do list includes breaks throughout the entire day. This will also help you to get more focused and have more energy for your tasks.

    Sticking to Your Daily To-Do List

    Creating a daily to-do list is never challenging. However, the only battle that comes along the daily schedule is sticking to it, especially when handling distractions. Below are several tips that will assist you in sticking to your daily to-do list:

    Add in extra time between your chores

    Adding extra time between your tasks will prevent you from canceling your entire schedule; suppose something comes and consumes a lot of time than you would have imagined. In every task ahead of you, at least add an extra time of about 15 to 20 minutes.

    You must be realistic about what you want to accomplish at the end of the day. If you are too ambitious and you have scheduled multiple tasks. Then your schedule is not likely to work from the beginning.

    Ensure your work environment is distraction-proof

    You must have a boundary between your work and home life by designing space for your work. This will prevent your brain from getting distracted easily.

    Common To-Do List Mistakes and How to Fix Them

    Almost every individual has developed a daily to-do list, but are you aware that at least 41% of the scheduled tasks are never accomplished. The only way to ensure that your daily schedule survive is by avoiding the common to-do list mistakes, which include:

    Avoid tracking your progress

    Creating a daily to-do list is one thing; tracking the progress is another thing. Ticking your task once you accomplish it is not the best way of evaluating the efficiency of your work with every task you perform. You can opt for workflow and task management services to help track your progress. Whatever you feature on the list should be prioritized. And you can only achieve this by organizing your tasks, creating deadlines, and archiving your accomplished projects.

    There are multiple solutions that can help you have a deeper understanding of time management, efficiency, and work ethic. Besides, all these will make you become more efficient when it comes to achieving your goals.

    Lists featuring mixed up contexts and goals

    Most people’s daily to-do lists contain not only work-related chores but also work unrelated tasks, such as picking up the kids and laundry. When you do not sort out these tasks, you are likely to commence cluttering your mind with a lot of information. And when your brain is full of uncategorized information, it is likely to become more stressful. When creating a daily to-do list, ensure you make two lists, household and work to-do lists.

    Not understanding the tasks to feature on the list

    Multiple people do not understand which tasks they should include in their list, and this is a primary mistake. However, you can easily rectify it if you follow the Eisenhower Decision Matrix Table. It features excellent ways of organizing your daily to-do list and thoughts concerning which tasks are essential and should be assigned to your colleague’s list or yours. It will also assist you in eliminating tasks that do not require your time. To ensure your daily to-do list works, ensure you select at least three items daily the quadrant decides. And delegate the remaining chores appropriately to this matrix.

    Multiple items on your list

    If the items on your list have a deadline, ensure your list has a maximum number of items. This will assist you in figuring out what needs to be prioritized, what can wait, and what can be eliminated completely. Therefore, ensure you use a daily to-do list to accomplish your tasks.

    It is good to prioritize three urgent and essential tasks, which you can manage to finish within the day. This will assist you in understanding better the essentialness of the items you would love to feature on your list and if they are necessary. Remember, a lot of items on your list will make you stressed and intimidated.

    Lack of set deadlines

    Coming up with a daily to-do list without a deadline is a primary mistake that most people make. An excellent task management list is only worth it if it features a completion set deadline. Here is where the weekly and daily to-do list comes in to help.

    Developing the list, the very day

    This is a common mistake that promotes unproductivity because it makes you commence your day with a brainstorming session that might be pretty stressful, making you less organized. Experienced daily to-do list template users recommend making this checklist during the evening. Before leaving the office, ensure you plan for your next day. This assists you in avoiding thinking about chores that fall out of your working schedule.

    Not knowing where to start when the list is ready

    Starting your day with a random task can make you multitask the entire day. It is good to start your day with unpleasant or crucial projects on the list. This will give you the motivation to work on your next project. It is also a better way of gaining self-respect.

    Things to Avoid Doing If You Want a Productive Day

    There are many elements professionals should not do to remain productive. Below are some of those things:

    Staying in the pajamas

    Please do not start your work or day in your pajamas. Waking up and commencing your day in a new style, a chapter makes everything you do successfully. Ensure after waking up that you work out, shower, dress up, and face the day when you are fresh. This applies to entrepreneurs, employees, household heads, and volunteers.

    Worshipping your snooze button

    Nowadays, no one wants to waste their time sleeping when they could develop their skills and enhance their productivity by brainstorming new ideas. Statistics indicate that early risers are better at solving problems, and they are more productive as well as proactive. Therefore, it is better to be an early bird, exercise to keep your body fit and commence your day on a fresh page.

    Overcommitting and overscheduling

    Overscheduling will make you forgo breaks, and overcommitting will make you let people down. Avoid overestimating, and you will not look like a failure but be realistic about what you want to do and ensure you achieve it. And you will have everything done in an organized manner.

    Deprioritizing self-care

    Professional individuals exercise self-care to emerge successfully. Take your time to do things that make you happy by offering you physical and mental health support because success does not apply to your professional accomplishments and finances.

    Carrying forward yesterday’s problems

    Avoid carrying the previous day’s issues to a new day. If you had a challenging conversation or meeting that left you with a horrible experience the previous day, ensure you drop it at the door, more so if the problem was solved. Concentrating on the negative side will leave you stressed. You have to learn to let go.

    Focusing on the negative experience

    Research indicates that many people experience positive events, unlike negatives ones. However, human minds usually dwell on the negative because of subconscious bias termed negativity bias. Ensure you do not focus on negative events by appreciating the things that are doing well in your life.

    Sinking in your overview

    Sometimes you cannot avoid waking up thinking about the workload that is before you. And this can ruin your day even though they might just be thoughts. You can avoid this scenario by appreciating what you have achieved during your working hours, and this will get you empowered.

    Allowing others to schedule your thinking

    Avoid allowing others to program how you think. Furthermore, what you say, see, and hear directly influences your thinking. Therefore, commencing your day with a snarky newscast on social media platforms will never serve you well. You should aim for the positive and what you can manage.

    Prioritizing your phone

    If you want to stimulate your stress hormones, go through your phone immediately you wake up. You must know that your mind and body require a duration of waking up, and it should be free from social media, email, and news. Offer yourself a chance to anticipate, breathe and appreciate what you have. Stop prioritizing your phone when you wake up.

    Commencing the day with junk

    To make yourself successful, avoid mindless television and eating junk food, among other unproductive work. Make sure you focus on healthy meals, especially breakfast, and activities that make you start your day on a good note.

    Waiting for an opportunity

    Multiple people have this habit of just waiting so a chance to emerge. This makes them passive observers instead of proactive players in their life. Bear in mind that unsuccessful individuals usually figure out how to do work faster for minimal hours. However, it is good not to start with a life hack search on your internet.

    Leaving the day to randomness

    Ensure you make things fall in place and do let them just happen. Bear in mind that lack of structure can cause ineffectiveness, which results in distraction. Your daily to-do list should be clear since it features what you should concentrate on. The first 90 minutes of your day should be one of the most crucial tasks to minimize your cognitive load for your entire day.

    FAQs

    Why Do to Do lists fail?

    To-do lists usually fail because most individuals usually get overwhelmed with things they require to do and accomplish. Furthermore, it is also prone to fail if you do not know how to prioritize the items on the list since you might feel the list is never reducing. On the other hand, it fails due to mixed up work tasks both at home and office.

    How do you tackle your To-Do list?

    Below are several ways of tackling the to-do list:
     
    · State your long term goals on the long term list
    · Commence early
    · Workout regularly
    · Make the bed once you wake up
    · Say no to distraction
    · Prioritize crucial tasks

    What is the first thing You Should Perform on a To-Do list?

    You must list the entire tasks you require to carry out. And each task should feature its importance.

    How do you organize your overwhelming list?

    Here are six ways of organizing your overwhelming list:
     
    · Keep it simple and short
    · Jot down your goals
    · Divide hard tasks into manageable portions
    · Write everything you require to achieve
    · Keep a single list

    Final verdict

    Based on this comprehensive post, you now understand the importance of a daily to-do list. Besides, successful individuals also use it because they are also likely to fall off the track. This template helps you to avoid distractions and prioritize essential tasks. Ensure you create one to enhance your productivity and stay organized.