Tips for Thriving in a To-Do List-Dominated World

"As hard as I work every day, shouldn’t I have 'arrived” by now?" According to Andy Core, that’s a question that nags at managers and executives striving to make each day productive — but bound to to-do lists and tormented by having too few hours to complete every task well.  All you do is work, but you have only mediocre results to show for it.

"Once, you had big goals and the confidence to achieve them, but now all you feel is tired, stressed, and overburdened," he writes. "It seems the dreams you once had—of leading your department, being the top salesperson, joining the C-suite—have disappeared into the quicksand that has become your daily life."

Andy Core says you’re not a loser. Like so many others, you’re an unwitting victim of today’s demanding work culture, not to mention bad habits that are sabotaging your best efforts.

“As you go through life, you develop habits and routines that you think will help you succeed,” according to Core, author of Change Your Day, Not Your Life: A Realistic Guide to Sustained Motivation, More Productivity, and the Art of Working Well. “Problem is, many of those patterns probably don’t work for you personally. What’s productive for your coworker may not work well for you, for example. Or a strategy that was effective five years ago may no longer work.”

The author's Tips for Thriving in a To-Do List-Dominated World, spelled out at length in his recent column, "13 Ways to Regain Productivty … and Thrive," are illustrated here.