One bloody list, that’s all you need, where all your projects and tasks can be seen in one place.

I’ve worked in the corporate world for a long time and if there is one thing we love, it’s a list.

But here’s the problem, you make a list and put it somewhere and get going and never look at the list again.

Then you start feeling confused and overwhelmed so you make another list.

And before you know it, you’ve got so many lists, in so many different places that you have no idea which is the most up to date list, you’re constantly shuffling information from one list to another and you get so confused, you start another list. A master list.

And so it goes again.

If you’re running a business, especially if you’re providing services or run projects, you need one list to work from so you and everyone in your team knows what you actually need to do each day.

Then you’re in the lovely world where you and everyone knows what they need to do and in what order to do them and miracles happen, you start knocking things off the list because they’re done!

So how do you go about getting to that place?

1. Commit to the Process: Decide that you’re going to do this and make it a priority because half hearted doesn’t cut it when it comes to managing your tasks.

2. Choose Your Central Hub: Decide where the list is going to held - a shared drive, a project management tool or a physical board, it doesn’t really matter as long as you have one place and everyone knows that that is the font of all knowledge.

3. Assign Responsibility: Decide who is responsible for maintaining the list, who needs to be consulted and who informed of any changes. Make sure that there is an owner for updating and general maintenance of the list.

4. Consolidate Your Lists: Then comes the painful part - gather up all your lists, put them all into one list and review each task on the list. Is it live, is it in progress, is it actually done? Get rid of all duplicates and if there are any notes, merge them into one.

5. Implement and Maintain:Now you have one list.

But it doesn’t end there! Put a process in place where you actually look at that one list and prioritise each week so you know what order to do things in and start actually knocking things off the list based on what you really need to get done!