Do you find it difficult to stay organised? Perhaps, you have too much on or an endless bucket load of washing to do. Or, do you frequently finish work feeling like you’ve achieved nothing? Perhaps,
- Your desk looks more cluttered then when you arrived.
- Your inbox maxed out last week.
- Post-it notes cover your computer screen and wall.
- There’s no room left for your feet beneath the desk.
- That 7am morning meeting finally finished an hour before clocking off.
Copious amounts of information bombards us from all directions. Text messages, social media posts, emails, app notifications, advertisements, meeting requests, passing conversations, phone calls, and standard postage battle for our attention.
It’s no wonder 49% of Aussies and Kiwis are not satisfied with their ability to handle stress. Human Synergistics Australia’s 2025 white paper, The Way We Work, reports we are less likely to prioritise our own wellbeing when stressed.
Learn to prioritise and stay organised
AHRI, The Australian HR Institute‘s quarterly report for Q1 2025, shared 26% of Australian employers had indicated their workers were sighting excessive workloads as the number one reason for leaving their jobs.
When employees wrestle with task overload it can overwhelm leading to a disorganised work environment. And this condition not only invades our working lives but our personal lives too. We can struggle to prioritise, call in sick because we’re stressed, and avoid contact with the people and places we feel we’re letting down.
While most workplaces provide you with a job description detailing your duties and tasks, many are out of date, miss stuff, or don’t reflect the actual work. And while they might communicate a list of responsibilities, they’re missing what “other duties as assigned” means.
Just because a workplace has documented step-by-step procedures, policies and job descriptions, you can still have task overload. Knowing how to prioritise and manage a heavy workload has benefits.
The prioritising method we’re discussing in this article is how to stay organised with a checklist. Checklists, also referred to as to-do lists, serve as an essential organisational tool at work and at home.
Keep a daily list with 3 main actions
A daily task to-do list:
- Acts as a reminder.
- Helps you to prioritise your day.
- Shows if you’re over-committing.
- Prioritises the most important tasks.
- Saves you time.
When you don’t finish a significant task, stay organised by carrying it over to the next day and then the day after that until you can mark it as complete or abandoned.
Avoid creating massively long daily task lists. Long lists create an overwhelming feeling.
Stay organised with the three task rule
Matt Rolfe, a coach, speaker and entrepreneur, once advised me to list only three actionable main tasks for the day. This approach is known as the Three Task Rule or Three Task Approach. It is rooted in the rule of three productivity principal, which recognises how our brains function.
People who use this approach, whether for work or personal lives, prioritise three important tasks a day. Using this approach, the three task rule:
- Focuses on successfully planning three important things at a time.
- Prioritises tasks that have a meaningful impact and create significant progress.
- Reduces overwhelming feelings by making your objectives clearer.
- Eases unnecessary stress generated from long lists.
You could also create other time-bound tasks lists (weekly and monthly), based on the rule of three, to help with prioritising.
The number three emphasises three important tasks. That is three tasks that have a significant impact on moving forward, making meaningful progress, having serious consequences or repercussions.
For example, say I was responsible for my workplace’s weekly appointment calendars. I might include this big responsibility on my weekly task list as: “Publish next week’s calendars”.
Like all big-item tasks, “Publish next week’s calendars” can be broken down into smaller tasks. I might create a specific task check-list for it that outlines the smaller steps and also acts as an audit tool for quality control.
When all the tasks on the specific task check-list are completed, I have finished the broader task. I can then tick off the task on my weekly checklist.
Manage your time and priorities upwards
A checklist also assists with prioritising workflow from managers.
Say you’re an administration assistant who answers to more than one line manager. You might keep a schedule of requests from your managers. You can turn this schedule, which we’ll call “Daily actionable requests” into a task checklist to manage your time upwards.
How do you use it to manage your time?
- Give your managers access to the schedule so they can add to it. Encourage them to talk to each other about what tasks get priority. Now, they can see and broaden their awareness of what you have on and what other people are asking of you.
- You can use the schedule to discuss tasks and their priorities with managers. It helps to manage their expectations.
You might create a form that looks something like the table below, which your managers fill out. You might include “Complete daily actionable requests”, as one of your three important tasks on your daily checklist.
| Date | Topic | Request from | When needed | Estimated time | Date completed |
| 01/06/2025 | Letter to client. | Madge | 01/06/2025 | 30 minutes | 01/06/2025 ✅ |
| 01/06/2025 | Client invoices. | Junior | 01/06/2025 | 4 hours | 01/06/2025 ✅ |
Even if you only have one line manager, a schedule of actionable requests is vital evidence of your workload. Use your schedule of requests to:
- Discover more efficient work processes.
- Lighten your workload.
- Request help.
- Argue for an assistant or new team member.
However, what I’m about to share with you isn’t just any ordinary to-do list. It’s a checklist organiser.
What you need to create a checklist organiser
- Notebook (I recommend using an A5 sized book).
- At least four coloured pens, such as green, yellow, purple and red.
- Ruler (optional).
- Star stickers (any colour).
Stay organised with the 7-Step checklist
- Open your notebook to the first available page.
- Write today’s date at the top.
- Create a list of all the important tasks you need to complete before day’s end.
*Use one line per task.
*Prioritize each task with coloured pens (refer to the colour guide below). - Rule a straight line through each task as you complete it. Or place a tick at the end of the line.
- Start a new list on a new page for tomorrow’s tasks.
- Go back through your book each day and find the pages with no stars. Assess any unfinished tasks. If you need to bring a task forward to a new page, complete the task on the old page so you don’t keep revisiting it.
- Reward yourself with a star when a day’s list is completed. Place the star sticker on the page where you can easily see it. When you reward your efforts visually, it also indicates each item on the page is completed. A page with no star has unfinished business.
Prioritise your list with colours
- Red tasks have a sense of urgency. There are serious consequences if they’re not completed that day.
- Blue tasks are repetitive.
- Green tasks are for long projects. You expect they will take a week or longer to complete.
- Black tasks are not constrained by time.
You can use other colours for further categorisation. For example, you may want to use different colours to differentiate between group and individual tasks.
Stay organised at home with your checklist
A checklist organizer works anywhere. You may want to keep two lists: one for work and one for your personal life.
Keep your house clean and your lawn mowed by adding chores to your home organiser checklist. You could also use it to:
- Organize your wedding.
- Job hunt.
- Plan Uncle Ben’s retirement party.
- Prioritize and pay bills.
- Arrange your next holiday.
You can use it to manage most types of events or life circumstances.
Digital checklist organisers
As today’s workplace is digitalised, many companies automate their workflows and checklists with the assistance of online applications such as Monday.com and Click-Up.com.
Digitalised to-do lists allow you to to take your lists with you, where ever you go. You can easily access online checklists via a tablet or a smart phone.
Not into keeping your to-do list in a notebook? One of these online organisation apps maybe more suitable.
What you need to know about digitalising your tasks
Choosing the right project or task organiser can be overwhelming. There are so many different types of apps with multiple functions that can help you stay organised in your work and personal life.
When you’re not your own employee, you may not get to choose the right checklist app for you. We list three different organising checklist types below with a short review.
The first challenge with these apps is the cost. However, places like Monday have a free sign-up option for single users.
The second challenge is setting them up for practical use. They’re usually more detailed and can contain attachments, updates, alerts, be shared with other users for collaboration and feed into reports. Some apps have instructional videos you can watch or a (paid) course you can take.
Finally, you need to create a new habit when using these apps and their lists to make them part of your every day routine.
Checklist apps for PC, smartphones and tablets
If you don’t want to carry a notebook around, these apps can help you get organised.
- Microsoft To Do
- Monday
- Click-Up
- Apple Reminder.
- Todoist.
- Wunderlist.
- Google Keep.
- Habitica (a gamified to-do list).
- OmniFocus 2.
- 2Do (to-do list, tasks and notes).
Apps versus paper-based checklists
Apps automate checklists. They make it easier to share and integrate your workflow with other people, programs and work processes. However, when a computer system stalls or the power fails, a manual checklist organiser keeps you in control.
A paper-based checklist is an essential tool for emergencies. Consider printing a copy of your daily digital task checklist the night before and storing hardcopies of your emergency procedures and relevant checklists at hand.
While you might read that the handwritten checklist is a thing of yesterday, some people still prefer to put pen to paper.
Users report having more success with handwritten lists. This could be because the brain has to engage more when writing and it improves memory, fine motor skills and ignites creativity. People find this simple method less convoluted then setting up and using a list in an app.
From my experience working with organisations that use digital task apps, these processes can easily become confusing and out-of-date. Ensure there is at least one person responsible and focused on maintaining or managing the flow of tasks.
Why you should stay organised with a checklist
By using a checklist organiser such as a work to-do list, you take back control of your work. Rather than constantly remembering everything you need to do, listing your important tasks frees up your thoughts to focus on the job at hand.
A checklist organiser also extends beyond the everyday to-do list. Use it to complete a specific process, such as an occupational health and safety check or site audit. Or to organize everything you need to do to relax and enjoy a weekend away.
By staying organised with a checklist, you can help relieve workplace stress. You can also use a to-do list to:
- Put forward a business case for more resources.
- Update a job description and assign responsibilities.
Most of all, checklists help to visually manage and organise either a process or things you need to do. As a result, that final tick takes a heap of pressure off you.
Editorial note
This article was first published on HubPages.com in 2012. It was removed, updated, edited and published on Jacmus.com in 2025.