I have been trying to review material on todo lists and various life management aspects, I still have a lot of material to read, review, and contemplate but I am curious what everyone elses thoughts (and reading recommendations are) in regards to the topic. My manager Grant Herbon made a very insightful observation recently that the key to time/life management is simply using whatever system works best for you, with that in mind, what system works best for you?
The internal debate I am having right now (before even selecting a method/presentation medium) is if todo lists should be a time limited thing daily, weekly etc. or if they should be a perpetual list just consumed in small chunks. Where the perpetual todo list concept comes from is a period in my life when I practiced polyphasic sleep. Basically ever 4 hours I slept for 15 minutes for a total of 2 hours asleep per day, I did this for a number of months. One of the most interesting things that I observed while on that sleep schedule was a nearly continuous stream of consciousness and also the disappearance of the concept of completing stuff within a day proper. My todo list became a number of 4 hour long sprints and the list as a whole became a long list of things that were then broken down and consumed in 4 hours chunks. Not effective for a normal schedule but conceptually it interests me which leads me to where I am now. Trying to evaluate the systems that exist, and deciding if some modified perpetual program would be effective long term. Maybe something like this exists already and I just haven’t found the proper publication, or maybe I will end up with a blend of ideas. Much research is still needed but I am very interested to hear your thoughts and recommendations on the topics. I know that many of you who read this randomly when I actually post are very driven and successful people so I would love to hear from you.
(Most people find the polyphasic sleep stuff odd/interesting as well so I am totally open to comment/discussion around that as well if you have any questions)
Daily ToDo lists vs Perpetual ToDo lists?
Posted by JordanRinke
on 20100806
Yo,
I use some very basic ideas from ‘Getting Things Done’, which by the way is pretty interesting in that it doesn’t necessarily focus on specific tactical things (like what tools you should use) but on more strategic things (like getting oneself to go through the same steps periodically to ‘get stuff done’.)
I don’t by into it whole-hog, but here’s what I got from it:
o I try to get everything out of my head and into ‘trusted sources’. In my case, Google calendar, work calendar, notebook for immediate TODOs, and text file for longer term work goals. This helped me a lot, since I tended to try to ‘remember’ stuff.
o I keep a task list in a notebook, cross things off as I do them, and at the end of the day either transfer incomplete tasks to tomorrow’s list, put them on a calendar, or just decide to not do them.
o I periodically review my goals, and decide if I need to do something in furtherance of those goals as a task in my notebook, or on the calendar.
o This one is actually from Mark Twain, by way of some GTD or productivity guy on the interwebs. Every morning I eat a live frog. That way, I know the worst is behind me. In lieu of eating the frog, I do whatever task I least want to do (or most want to put off until later). I am a terrible procrastinator, and this one rule has a huge impact for me.
I think daily TODO lists are the way to go. It gives you a chance, either at the end of the day or first thing in the morning, to ‘clear the decks’ and reassess what you’re doing. By the way, RS has a ‘getting things done’ class that I thought was pretty good. Not, like, life-changing or anything, but I took several good things away from it. For my daily TODO, I tried a text file and a couple of other software options, but nothing really worked for me as well as a notebook. It sure feels good to cross things off with old-fashioned pen and paper.
-RN
Just remember not to spend so much time thinking about and compiling a to-do list that you don’t actually get around to doing anything.
Are you familiar with 43folders? http://www.43folders.com/
It’s a neat little productivity website and the owner, Merlin Mann, is well worth following on Twitter. Funny guy, and smart too.