How SMART todo lists will help you to reach goals faster
Published: 2020-12-30 14:03:16

If you have the habit of avoiding planning for upcoming days and choose to do just as you go, the most common reason is you don't want to overload yourself with uncertainties. But the truth is more you try to avoid it, the more it creates the problem in the future. The power to make it certain is within us to see past the threats you must solve earlier and minimize them as much as possible.

### Unless you experience, never knew the importance
Three months back, when I started to learn and build for my product, the hard part each day I had is, What should I do today? I used to think hours what should I do next. Think tons of ideas to implement for the next few days, feeling pumped up, would do nothing. I stuck in the same terrain for a few days. Only then, I started to plan for the week's tasks.

The second thing I got stuck with is postponing important tasks. I would have a list of items on my to-do list. Every time I would start with the easiest one first. I had the feeling those days, at least I would have completed one task if I choose the easiest one. Only then it creates more issues, the most important task I have to finish, keeps jumping to the next day.

### Supercharge your tomorrow with SMART todo-list

Charles Duhigg shares a similar experience in his past and how this let to write his book - "Smarter, Faster, Better".  For a to-do list to be really effective it has to do two things. Push us to do the most important task first and should exactly tell how it should get done.

He breaks this into elements that make the to-do list effective.
1. Stretch goals - A big ambition, at end of the day, our most important objective.
2. SMART goals - Taking that big ambition goal and breaking it into tasks that are smart, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timeline specific.

Best to-do lists are ones that remind us what to do next.

### Action items
1. Let's categorize the goals we break down earlier and check whether it passes the SMART tasks.
2. To start with simple, let's list down the tasks that we are going to do in the next 3 days. Having a objective based on the week might push you to work ambitious every day and measure at end of the week.
3. Add the most important tasks to your personal to-do list and make sure to answer the question, what one thing will push you one step further each day.

### Thought for the day

![Set out to conquer the ocean. (10).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1608657910711/aHrmg4SzU.png)

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This article is written by [Karthikeyan](https://twitter.com/_karthikyn) and co-authored by [Rams](https://twitter.com/code_rams). 

![Set out to conquer the ocean. (1).gif](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1608657318762/e35aNDJgt.gif)

> This article was written as part of day 06 of the [#14daysbreakloop](https://100daysof.codes/the-14daysbreakloop-challenge) challenge. Plan your weekly tasks - one thing that pushes you towards your big goal and keep an eye on not running out of your task list charge. 
Install the extension now from [Chrome Web Store](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/100daysofcodes/cecmfhlijbbeeeobbgnoaajmhckdganc) and start working on your #100daysofcode. This article was originally published in [blog.100daysof.codes](https://blog.100daysof.codes)