Goals and to-do list are different type of list. They have different purposes.

A goal is something you want to achieve, and a task is something you act on to move towards the goal.

A goal can be long-term – one year, three-year, five year or ten years.

Long-term goals can be broken into small actionable tasks.

Long-term or 12-month goals => quarter (90day) goals => Monthly goals => Weekly goals => Daily 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs).

A goal can be a project and may include monthly, weekly or daily milestones. The milestones will be part of your to-do list.

Example of a goal: To go on a 3-day holiday to Barcelona during the long weekend in August 2022.

Example of to-do list: ‘this is project specific to-do list or task list’

• To compare deals that includes flight and accommodation

• To book the best deal

• To buy clothes for the holidays

• To renew travel insurance before the holiday

Create a master task or to-do list. The items on the list are usually your most important tasks for the day or week, milestones of a monthly goal or the 90day goal, appointments, shopping list, people to call, waiting for responses list, and so on.

Assign these tasks to specific days of the week, next week or month. Either prioritise the tasks and allocate to specific days or allocate the tasks first and then prioritise them first thing on the day. You may want to use the ABCDE method to prioritise your weekly or the daily list.

Completing your to-do list for the day or week can be one of your goals.

To-do list can be category based – list for work, shopping, home related chores, school related and so on.

In summary, a goal is something you want to accomplish and the to-do list includes tasks to achieve your goal.