A few months ago, I noticed I was starting to feel that underlying anxiety that I was missing something I was supposed to be doing. I was behind on email. I have to dos in many places. And a more than one task fell through the cracks.

It was because I was not emptying all the buckets my to dos came in each day. Since I love checklists to keep me on track, I created a morning planning checklist.

I would look into each of these places to gather all my to dos. I put them on one page in Notion.so or into my planner if it’s not for today.

1. Quiet time journal – often during quiet time or prayer I come up with actions to take that I note in the margin of my journal. If I don’t need to do it today, I put it in my planner.

2. My planner – it’s a weekly planner so I transfer today’s to dos to my Notion Today page.

3. Notion – Any notes, ideas or things I put in Notion yesterday that I need to do something with. Some people use a desk notebook to jot items down during the day and that would go on this checklist.

4. Calendar – my appointments are already in my planner, but I often have recurring tasks or tasks I need to do on a certain date that I take from my Google Calendar.

5. Email – I have various email accounts to check for todos. I used to use Shift that consolidated all the accounts. I loved that, but it quit working after my computer updated. I process all the email that was left from yesterday and any that came in that night. (See Digital Organization for how I organize email)

6. A client’s Microsoft Teams for tasks

7. A client’s Asana for tasks

Now I take a quick glance at my Today page in Notion and put the three most important to dos at the top of my Today list. I start there. Then I pick another 1-3 if I finish those.

If I end up with tasks that have about the same importance and I can’t decide, I number the tasks and use random.org to chose one. Moving forward with some to dos is more important than getting the “perfect” priority. I find trying to get the to dos in the exact right priority order is another form of procrastination for me.

What buckets do you have for todos? Some people have Slack or get lots of voicemails/texts or use other project management systems. Would a checklist help you?