The following post is courtesy of Diane Harrison who is principal and owner of Panegyric Marketing, a strategic marketing communications firm founded in 2002 specializing in alternative assets.
In these first days of 2026, how many of you have taken stock of the past year’s experiences- the goals met, projects undertaken, challenges overcome? In order to make sense of where you’ve been, you need to recognize the journey that’s taken you to now, and to plan for the path ahead.
In both personal and professional endeavors, the practice of introspection combined with future planning makes sense of your own travel path. Writing things down and measuring progress can help to keep this journey moving forward in ways that you intend. In the spirit of the new year’s fresh start, consider a few arguments in favor of putting pen to paper.
5 Reasons Why To Do Lists Are Important
1. They allow you to organize your time better. By focusing your efforts on prioritizing the tasks or goals you’ve set for yourself, resources can be allocated to the accomplishments that matter to you, versus just reacting to demands that are put upon one by the daily routine one finds oneself in.
2. Having a written list of items allows for planning and/or reassessment of priorities more easily. Rather than hoping you’re on top of everything needing to get done in your head, having a list of action items makes it easier to track progress or reorganize the whole as situations demand. It also decreases the anxiety which can build up when there’s too many demands on your time, and triage needs to happen in order to focus effectively on getting things done.
3. Time management becomes much easier to follow when you have a list of to do items. Some things, while high priority, might be a singular or quick task, and can be crossed off once completed. Others may be multi-step or repeat activities which will, of necessity, remain on your task list for a longer period of time (think quarterly tax filing, for example). If you have a complex project listed, you can break it down into segments and track your progress through the steps more easily.
4. Make your to do list something that can be achieved in a reasonable period of time. This not only helps keep the focus on what’s time sensitive near-term, but also minimizes the chance of overlooking these items on tight deadlines. Redoing your list on a daily or weekly basis lets you track progress as completed items can move to a ‘done’ status and new items join the ‘to be done’ list.
5. Finally, writing things down helps with the 80/20 sorting rule, in which 80% of your time should be focused on the top 20% of your most important tasks. If you make the commitment to following the Write It Down plan and stick to it, your running list of action items tends to self sort and makes this 80/20 practice easier to implement.
So let’s resolve to make 2026 the year of the list, and best wishes for all in sticking to it!
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