My to-do list(s)

[chanaleh]

In the spirit of the upcoming New Year, some meta-organizing:

Did you ever notice that LJ features a To-Do List function? It's a bit ungainly and not terribly useful as is (adding each new item requires multiple reloads; there are no subtask fields; I doubt the format is too printer-friendly, especially for someone like me whose real to-do list would be dozens [not to say hundreds] of items long...).

The Time Management seminar I took at MIT some months back had only a few really useful key points to offer me:

1. The things that suck your mental energy the most are the things you are NOT doing (avoiding, waiting on, etc.). Write them down, break them down, decide what parts you're going to do soon and what you're going to do later (or never)... and free yourself of them.
   
2. An incomplete list is often worse than no list at all (because you put even more energy into reminding yourself, in the background, of whatever you didn't include on the list). We did an exercise they called a mind sweep, which is to write down Every Single Thing In Every Area Of Your Life that's currently weighing on your mind. I already do this, but not often enough. I need to do it again now, that's for sure. It really was energizing. [Plus I just had the entertaining impulse to develop a project-management software tool using this principle and call it MindSweeper...]
   
3. In the short term: Projects are not the same as tasks, projects are made up of tasks. (Projects are also not the same as goals; they are the things you decide to do to further your goals.) A list of your near-term projects can and should break out the subtasks of those projects in as much detail as possible. But this is different from your immediate (daily/weekly) list of "action items" (much as that phrase bugs me), which you pull from the projects list as appropriate. Cross-pollination is key.
   
4. Keep a "Someday/Maybe" or otherwise "long-term" to-do list, completely separate from those other lists. This is stuff that occurs to you that would be cool, or useful, or that you otherwise know you want to do eventually, but isn't pressing in any way. This keeps you from muddying your "real" list of concrete I-am-currently-working-on-this projects with things you aren't, realistically, going to be spending any energy on anytime soon. Assigning something to that list also gives you "permission" not to think about it again until you actually decide to pick it up for real.

Anyway, so the items I've entered on my LJ To-Do list are basically my "Someday" category. Which purpose fits well with the interface, in that these are things I'm effectively parking until further notice -- but are worth occasional review. Especially at times when I'm mulling over other big-picture life issues.

Tonight, to tackle the the real mind-sweep. I hope. Along with finishing the newsletter layout (and, oh yeah, the dishes). But first, dinner.

Comments

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your organization strategies! I've never thought of a mind sweep before (though I spend way too much time with MineSweeper).

So how do you end up organizing your ordinary to do lists? Paper planners? Electronic ones?

I occasionally use a program called LifeBalance by Llama Software. It's a very unlinear approach -- actually, I have a hard time using it because it is so linear. For the most part I use paper planners.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

My usual term for "mind sweep" is "brain dump". Same thing, though. I've been known to do it before bed if there are things racing around my head that I need to consciously let go of.

My paper planner is actually more of a glorified calendar/address book (and budget book, when I'm actually tracking expenses, but I haven't in some time). I have been known to keep my to-do lists in there, but mostly I get too crunched for space. So my REAL lists live in a letter-sized padfolio in my backpack -- along with a selection of other papers I probably don't need to carry around all the time but do because I don't have any better short-term filing system for them.

(In high school I used looseleaf paper in a 3-ring binder, separate from my school binders. I also kept copied-out song lyrics and that kind of junk in there. It lived in my bedroom, I didn't carry it around.)

I also have some computer files where I've typed up more of the long-term stuff to make nice clean printouts. (It's still just a text list, but that way I can get lots more items on one page, and it's easier to organize visually with bold headers and stuff.) Sitting in the time-management seminar, I got the tremendous urge to sit down and make a gigantic, intricate, exhaustive chart in QuarkXPress of my goals in different life areas and my projects and subprojects for the year and beyond. But needless to say, I haven't taken the time yet. :-)

I've never yet owned/used an electronic organizer (i.e. palmtop), but I imagine it might help lend my puddle of mental notes some more structure and hierarchy.

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Why would you use QuarkXPress over other programs? Is it because your mind works in a desktop publishing format... and good layout design would make your chart pleasing to you?

I have had mixed luck at getting any electronic program to work for me. The only thing that works reliably is a program called Due Yesterday for the Palm, PC, and Macintosh. It's for handling assignments.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Quark... I would also say PageMaker, but they're functionally equivalent. The answer is that those are the tools I'm most comfortable using (more so even than MS Word), and what I anticipate doing is a strictly visual/verbal layout, not something that needs to be hypertext-structured (as in a database with fields, or a calendar program). Though setting up tables in Word might be a better way to show an expandable structure of projects and subprojects (Excel could also do this, but it'd still be all text so I don't know if I'd bother). Ooh, and from Word I could export my tables to HTML and post them online. Heh.

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips :) Sharing one back:

I keep an unruled blank book and pen by my bed, because all the things I forgot to do today run circles through my mind right as I'm trying to fall asleep. By writing them down when I go to bed, it clears my mind so that I rest easier, and gives me a ready-made To Do master list to begin from the next morning.

Maybe it will work for you, too :) -H...