Rather than a todo list, make a quadrant chart.
Top right is “important but not urgent”
Top left is “important and urgent”
Bottom right is “not important and not urgent”
Bottom left is “not important and urgent”
Aim to spend at least 70% of your time working on “important but not urgent” tasks, otherwise you’ll burn out
fiefighting all the time.
You might not be able to do it like that immediately but make that your paramount goal. It’ll also gradually make the “important and urgent” list a lot smaller, as stuff doesn’t get to the point of being urgent. Adopt an “go a good job” attitude there, especially around doing things
With the “important and urgent” stuff prioritise very ruthlessly to tackle the most burning things first. Spend about 20-25% of your time there and adopt a “good enough” attitude to completing them. The point is to get urgent tasks done well enough that you can back to the important but not urgent stuff. In time you’d want to drop to working 10-15% of the time in that zone.
Spend about 5-10% of your time on stuff that isn’t important, whether or not it’s urgent. This allows you have a bit of a break from pressure and it helps you work work out things that don’t seem important at first but actually may be helpful in the long run, and therefore reclassify them as you start working increasing in the “important but not urgent zone”. You’ll also identify stuff that really isn’t ever important and you’ll be able to stop doing that.
The “not important but urgent” category also helps you do other people favours and help them out when they are up against it, whilst monitoring for who helps you back in return when you are up against it and building your work relationships accordingly.