Staying Organized with a Daily To Do List and Calendar

Every day, you need to map out your next day’s activities by creating a Daily To Do List. That way nothing gets lost in the cracks. 

The four sections you need to fill in each day for your career search:

• Tasks to be Done

• Calls to be Made

• Appointments to be made

• Projects to work on.

You can keep your To Do List updated online,  but if you do,  you need to print it out on a regular basis. This is hands-on stuff, and you need to have it in hard copy where you can touch it, feel it and take notes. The other reason you want to keep a printed copy in your Career Binder is so that you can see how you are progressing with your daily tasks. You also want to make sure you have a record of everything you’ve accomplished. 

Here is a To-Do List Template to use ... or create your own. (P.27)

The Daily To Do List is meant to be immediate.  It is meant to tell you exactly what you need to get done today. In reality ...  you will also be using it to keep track of tasks that may take a few days or that may have a future deadline. There are some tasks that you will want to schedule for upcoming days and that you will want to put on your Calendar. On Tuesday,  you should be thinking ahead to what you will need to be doing on Thursday. Once you get in the habit of using a To Do List, it shouldn’t take you long to figure out how to make it work for keeping track of tasks, and how to coordinate it with your calendar.

Your Calendar is separate from your To Do List and is essential for keeping track of your scheduled appointments.  

You will be scheduling your time a couple of weeks in advance so that you can meet with the people you need to meet with to make things happen. You are going to be meeting busy people and you don’t want to screw up by missing an appointment or scheduling two events at the same time.

You are becoming a busy person with a schedule that needs to be developed, maintained and adjusted on a constant basis. It is really easy to find a calendar template that you can print out. There’s probably a calendar app on your computer already.

For the calendar, it’s ok to go completely electronic or to buy an appointment book at the stationery store. However you do it, make sure it is handy and always with you and available.    Whether you keep your Calendar in your Career Binder or you keep it separate, make sure that it’s always with you.

So start planning and start looking at your Calendar and To Do Lists everyday ...