To-do now items include anything you need to do right away.

There are so many items that seem to require your immediate attention. Capturing them helps you see which items are the most important for you to accomplish; and lets you weed out those items, which do not really require immediate action. You are the one who can make action happen.

To-do now items can include simple or complex tasks.

For complex and time-consuming to-do items, you will need to plan adequate time for completion. You may want to put all other things aside, so you can focus on what matters most. For small and simple tasks, you might want to consider bunching them together to be more efficient. For example, you can do all of your phone calls at once.

To-do now items come in low, medium, and high priority.

Consider your overall job objectives when you assign priority. You may want to put a simple A, B, or C next to each item. Then, as you look at those items marked C, you will find some items that do not actually require immediate attention.

Apply the Smead Organomics principles for “To-Do Now” items.

You can put “TO-DO NOW” items to work for you, if you follow the following steps:

Capture.

No matter how these items come in (meetings, phone calls, emails...), write them all down. Don’t rely on your memory.

Centralize.

Get all of them in one place so you can see everything you have to do. Use one list for all of you To-Do Now tasks, regardless of how they originate.

Prioritize.

Put them in order of priority so you know where to start. Keep focused on the top priority tasks first. Avoid being distracted by interruptions or low priority work.

Use these principles to make sure you remember everything you have to do, and which things come first. Now you can get to work fully confident that you’re doing the most important things in the right order.