Years ago I began to feel like I wasn’t getting anything done. I knew that I was doing things, but for some reason it didn’t feel like much progress was being made. I decided that it would make sense to track just what I was actually doing each day – thus was born The To Done List.

The idea is simple. Each day I write down any task that I worked on or finished. I would also include things that took some time out of my day or represented activities that I didn’t normally do, but felt like an accomplishment.

Some examples of things that I wrote down – work on an app, reading a book or article, watching tutorials, working around the house, shopping, going out to eat, meeting friends, meetings in general or writing. This blog post will make it on my list for today along with several other things that I have done – mainly watching tutorials, and some other educational videos.

I have a running record for years of my life that I can look back at and see what I was working on at that time. I list the date and then follow with a list of activities I accomplished. But, it’s more than simply a record of what I’ve done – it’s also an incentive to accomplish something each day. I make a point to at least attempt do something that I feel worth writing down each day. But, the list at times also contains days that I really wasn’t up to doing much useful, and those days were ok.

To make your own list, get a notebook and write the date followed by activities that you did that day. You can decide what you choose to include. You can also change what you list over time. I do make a point to keep my descriptions limited to a few words and I split the page into columns to conserve pages. But, it’s your list and you can keep it how you want.

If you haven’t tried an idea like this, I recommend it. Try it for a few weeks or longer and see how it works for you.