To-do lists keep salespeople chasing urgent low-impact tasks instead of what matters. Try time-blocking instead: pick your most important work, give it a fixed two-hour block, and protect it from email and distractions. You'll get deeper focus and higher productivity.
Ditch your to-do lists, and instead of your to-do lists, start using time blocking. So a to-do list, it's better than nothing, but at the end of the day, it's very hard to stay strategic and focused when you're working on a to-do list. What ends up happening is you're running around like your hair's on fire trying to knock the next thing off and really just focusing on things that seem maybe to be urgent but not as important. Instead, time boxing allows you to prioritize activities, put time to them, and then complete those activities or tasks a given timeline. So in order to do that, you really need to look at what's most important, prioritize it, and ditch the things that aren't going to really be effective. It also allows you to really focus and get deep concentration on what you're working on. For example, if you're prospecting for 2 hours, then you're not going to spend any time being distracted by email, social media, water cooler talk, or just friends sending you text messages.
