Surviving in today's fast-paced world, and achieving tasks and goals, seems to be more about incremental steps - completing tasks little by little by contributing efforts to the task in sporadic, bite-sized pieces. We're constantly bombarded with new things to do - it's very hard to focus on just one thing anymore. Instead we have dozens of tasks and ideas floating around our head, and very little time to contribute to all of them.

For example - I have, on average, about 50 tasks always needing to be done, spanning all facets of my life: work, personal, family, etc. To to-do list never stops growing. This is due, largely in part, to the fact that I am very ambitious, and probably take on more than I can handle at any given point in time.

But I feel confident that I can accomplish anything, as long as I have an organized approach to managing tasks. I use to-do list software to help handle the overflow of constant to-do's, and changes with to-do's, that barrage me on an average day. Without it, I feel I would lose my mind.

An effective to-do list allows me to continue moving horizontal (forward), while also moving vertical (building on what I've already established).

It's the vertical portion that "makes or breaks" how well, and if you achieve tasks. Since there's so many tasks to be done, I can only focus on each for a short amount of time. With each opportunity to work on something, I supply "pieces" to a larger goal. This way, each task grows, and I'm dispersing my attention evenly amongst many tasks, instead of just one.

The right approach?

Many times I feel this approach is ineffective. Sure, I am able to continue building on a lot of tasks, but whatever happened to just focusing on one thing, and one thing only? Instead of dispersing bits of attention to many tasks - how about focusing all attention on a single task?

Focusing on many tasks may feel like you're "getting a lot done," but truthfully you're only scratching the surface on things, and fail to really feel the deep involvement of accomplishing something.

The right approach may be a combination of both. Often it's necessary to jump from task to task, while slowly pushing towards their completion. Other times, it might be best to focus 100% of your attention and efforts on just one task.

So, every once in a while, pick just one thing, and do it. Do it until it's completely done, and don't jump to anything else. If you can get just that one thing done for that day, then you've been successful.