Do you differentiate Need-to-do’s from Want-to-do’s?

Two weeks before vacation, I started thinking of all the things I needed to get done before we left town. I needed to get the guest room ready for the dog sitter, confirm we had enough dog food in the house and do laundry. That was in addition to finish my newsletter, follow up with a prospect, and forward an updated budget tool to a client. My list grew very, very long.

I'm a list maker. It is what allows me to move forward. I write it all down so I can assess where to focus and stop expending energy remembering everything that floats through my head.  As the list grew, and grew, assessing it built anxiety that everything was not going to get completed in time.

As I relayed my stress over the list of things to complete, specifically my newsletter, to a colleague, he reminded me I do not need to do an earlier release of my newsletter to accommodate for my vacation or the holiday. He went so far as to say I did not need to send out a newsletter at all. It's my business. I get to decide. I realized there were no real consequences of not distributing my newsletter at the same time as prior months or even at all.

I was reminded in that instant that I had taken something with no true deadline or consequences for non-completion and turned it into a NEED. The newsletter could be moved to the WANT list… at least for the vacation month.

I needed to differentiate what on my list was a NEED-to-do versus a WANT-to-do.

While there were benefits from completing everything on the to-do list, not everything needed to be done in the two weeks leading up to vacation. There are always items with a specific due date. I did need to get the laundry done before we left to avoid traveling with inappropriate clothes. I did need to forward the budget tool to a client before my departure, as I had committed, so they had the information necessary to make decisions. Those things needed to get done and stayed on the Need-to-do list.

On the flip side, there were many things on the list that were not absolutely necessary that week, or even this month. They were WANT-to-do’s.

All business owners do this. There are things that need to be done. We need to pay vendors, send out invoices, have a conversation with employees about project deliverables and/or complete the project for the client. Those things need to happen. There are consequences if they do not happen by a specific time. They are critical to continued success in running your business.

Then there is the WANT-to-do list. Don’t get me wrong, doing this work is also critical to the success of your business. It is about assessing the consequences of something not happening that week or month and then balancing your time on needs and wants. Truly identifying what is a need versus a want can prevent you from stressing yourself out. Especially when it revolves around time off or other factors limiting your capacity such as a sick kid at home, or a big client presentation. The wants get pushed to the back burner and the needs get prioritized so the most critical get the time they need.

Of course you cannot ignore your WANT-to-do list forever. Many of those items will be NEED-to-do’s further down the line. The key is to consistently monitor both the NEED-to-do and WANT-to-do lists, reallocating items as appropriate and balancing your capacity to spend time working on items from both lists.   

Vacation was wonderful and I did things I had not done in a long time, like ride a horse. I returned to my desk with more energy and was able to cross things off my to-do lists that were no longer relevant post vacation. I then reviewed everything on my list and did a quick reallocation of what was a NEED-to-do for the week and what could be put in the WANT-to-do list. If felt good knowing that I will not be overwhelmed by the volume of the list and can instead focus on completing those items that will have a real impact for my clients and business this week.