Computer Checklists - How To Use Them Efficiently

Unless you are a specially gifted organizer, you probably need a checklist to help you through your projects or any endeavor that you plan to undertake.

Checklist can significantly help you plan for the success of your particular event or project as it provides a clear safeguard against potential disasters. It can also help you save a lot of time during the preparation and the actual event itself.

If you use checklists thoughtfully, then they can be a very powerful tool to organize your people and your workplace. They can serve as your written guide that will delegate responsibilities to each member of your team. Checklists may sound elementary and mundane but these are vital tools that will help each and every one of perform our jobs better.

If you are currently working on a project and you want to utilize the power of checklists to help you meet your deadline, the first thing that you have to do is to identify the tasks or steps that you need to perform for your project.

Whenever possible, have these tasks arranged in chronological order or which task needs to be performed first before the other task is carried out. Divide the entire project into smaller pieces of task and each task can be further subdivided into smaller subtasks.

For instance, you're working on organizing your best friend's bridal shower so you can divide the entire project into the following tasks: theme, people to be invited, invitations, food, venue, gifts and miscellaneous.

The invitations can be further subdivided into: order online or purchase materials for invites (if you are creating your own), fill details for the invites and send out invitations. As soon as you are done with a particular task, check it out of the list.

As you progress with your tasks, check if accomplishment of one task will lead to the accomplishment of another as there are certain elements of certain tasks that seem to overlap. If that is the case, then make sure that you tick out of the list the tasks that overlap so you don't have to worry that you still have a lot to do.

Review your checklist frequently because doing so can give you an idea on how much work still needs to be done and how much time you have left. Make sure that you don't procrastinate because when you do, your checklist will be nothing but a list of tasks that you didn't perform.

Checklist software is especially useful, because you can quickly make changes, create dependencies between tasks, set priorities, due dates, reminders and so on. Most importantly you can also sort your tasks on criteria with a single click.