One thing you will find on my website recently is a huge amount of discussion about the benefits of having a long to-do list which attempts to capture everything versus a short list that you make up as you go along.

In my recent book Secrets of Productive People I went firmly for the second of these - the short list. Why?

Traditionally a to-do list has been a way of capturing everything that you have to do or want to do in the course of a day, week or longer period. According to the theory it's not until you have everything down on paper that you really have the measure of your work.

Unfortunately there are some huge disadvantages to this type of list. As anyone who has tried to use a list like this knows, they have a tendency to expand faster than you can cross the tasks off the list.

The result is that a long list of this nature works actively against the main principle of good work - FOCUS.

It is virtually impossible to maintain focus when you have a list containing more work than you can possibly do in the selected time period. The long list also disguises the main enemy of good time management which is over-commitment.

It takes courage to use a short list instead.

What do I mean by a short list? Usually it means anything from one to five items. At the shortest end of the scale you simply decide what you are going to do next and wirte it down before you start. This forces you to consider actively what to do rather than just drifting into something. In short it provides you with a much better focus.

At the longer end of the scale, the method I describe in my book is to write down the next five things you are going to do, then do them in order - re-entering them if you don't finish them first go - until there are only two left. You then top the list up with another three tasks.

Without the crutch of a "complete" list most people are frightened that they will forget something. However a short list works on the principle that if something is important you already have it in your head.

Try an experiment tomorrow, starting this evening.

At close of work today write a list of the five or six most important things that you want to do tomorrow. Don't include any routine things you would be going to do anyway. Write the list from your head without referring to anything.

Once you've written it, throw it away or shred it.

Tomorrow morning, before you start work, reconstruct the list from your mind. It doesn't have to contain exactly the same tasks or be in the same order. Once you've finished writing it, destroy it again.

During the day, use the single task method I described above. That is to say write down what you are going to do next and then do it. Write this as a list one task at time and at the end of the day you will have a record of what you have done during the day. Examine this carefully. Did you have a good day?

This "no list" way of working has some great advantages. Instead of ending the day with a huge list of what you haven't done, you have a list of what you have done. You can look at this and decide whether the focus was right and adjust it tomorrow.

However, as with any method, you do have to be careful not to fall into a rut. So if you decide to carry on with the short list approach it's essential to keep on doing the exercise each evening and morning of identifying the five or six most important things you want to do.