Minisode Monday #21 | A Better To Do List with SMART Goals

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. In this Minisode Monday, recent guest Charles Duhigg -- author of Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business and The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business -- joins us to discuss why we're probably writing our to do lists wrong and how we can use SMART goals to make them more effective. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: If you write to do lists, you're like most people who are trying to squeeze as much productivity out of the day as possible. But some to do lists are more effective than others; sometimes they're just written to make us feel productive. (About 15 percent of to do list writers include tasks they've already done for a sense of cognitive closure.) If you'd rather use your to do list to actually get things done instead of as a form of what Charles calls mood repair, try breaking it up. Put your most important task at the top: this is your stretch goal. "What you're trying to do is you're trying to use that to do list to not serve as just a memory aid, but rather to force you to think about your priorities," says Charles. Next, you break up the remaining tasks into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timeline) goals. "It takes 45 seconds to take a big goal and find its SMART components," says Charles. "But if you do that, within a minute you have your top proirity at the top of your to do list, and underneath you essentially have a plan of how to get started right away. That is the right way to write a to do list!" To learn more about social dynamics and productivity hacks, take the Art of Charm Challenge by clicking here, or text CHARMED to 33444. Also be sure to check out our Social Capital Intensive here! Let us know about how you put today's Minisode Monday into practice! Leave a comment below, tweet with @TheArtofCharm in your response, or write to Jordan directly: jordan@theartofcharm.com (he reads everything)! Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/minisode-monday-21-a-better-to-do-list-with-smart-goals/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices