The Importance of Making Lists-for the Next Day, Week, Month, Year, 5 Years

I attended a CLE program online last week and I keep thinking about one of the professor's comments. He made a Statement of the Obvious--

"Successful people make lists."

He cited some study that said the average person typically makes a plan for only the next 30 days, while the successful person plans for each day, each week, each month, each year, up to the next 5 years. The CLE instructor also advised that in respect of daily plans/lists, you should make the list at night before you leave work so that you wake ready and raring to go in the morning to knock things off of your list.

Most professionals have heard this at one time or another in their career. But, such a reminder, I think, is useful.I remember my former boss Ken Aaron reviewing his list every morning of bankruptcy legal "fires to put out." I remember the "Time Management" video we had to watch in business school in which we were encouraged to make lists of things to do and then to subcategorize them into A, B, C (level of priority) and then 1,2,3 (order in which to do them).I agree that making the longer term lists beyond the 30 days is more challenging.

I googled to see if there were any articles out there on list-making and found these useful ones.http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/fifty-habits-of-highly-successful-people.htmlhttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_05.htm