Agreed - to-do lists help a lot, along with judicious use of reminders (a simple prompt helps a lot).
At least for me the key is to aggressively wean my to-do list, keeping items on it that I'm highly likely to complete in the next few days, as opposed to an ever-growing wish list.
I kid, but for me personally, these sorts of things always end up consuming more cycles than they save me. That includes GTD and a bunch of other get organized tools of the month.
The only thing that I've found that helps is a small pocket sized moleskine that I just keep a running log of things I did, and things that I think I need to do, along with whatever else I needed to write down at the time (phone numbers, shopping list, etc).
The act of putting things down on paper seems to help me focus and keeping it simple helps to keep it from becoming something else I have to do. It's not sexy, but it works for me.
I keep various "to do" lists on my phone to track the things that I would like to get done. I find that breaking down projects into small tasks that can more easily completed and crossed off helps with my sense of accomplishment and progress. If a project doesn't seem as daunting I am more likely to attempt to complete it.
Setting reminder alarms for important things like appointments helps too.
1. Actively maintain lists when you use them. When you want to watch a movie and look back at your to-watch list, delete stuff! A lot of times you'll put something on a list because it struck you a certain way in the moment, but it doesn't really deserve its place. Be ruthless.
2. To-do lists come in two forms: a vital, nonnegotiable, long-lived list and ephemeral lists that serve you for a day or a week. Vital items: renew car registration, send wedding invites, find a primary care physician. Items for an ephemeral list: wash the car, schedule a meeting with Bob, try that new show somebody mentioned. Throw away the ephemeral list after its time has expired. Non-essential items can only be put on an ephemeral list, never the long-term list.
3. Don't treat stuff as precious if you discovered it by a simple web search. If you think "I should watch more French movies to maintain the French I learned in school" and Google "best French films of the 21st century," don't add any bookmarks or list entries for what you find. You can always do the search again. (No, you did not accomplish anything of lasting value by reading through the search results and picking the ones that appealed to you.)
4. Don't save things expecting them to change your behavior tomorrow. Don't think, "I keep thinking I should learn French. Maybe if I put some things on my to-do list...." Every day, the you that exists that day will make the decisions. Next Tuesday's you may or may not be smarter than today's you, but odds are that next Tuesday's you is not very interested in what today's you wants them to do. Only bequeath to them information they'll actually value and use.
5. Use a service like Pocket to bookmark articles. I use Pocket, and it's great because I only see it if I go to it, and it gives me no indicator of how many articles I've saved. I can scroll back if I want to, I can search in my articles if I want to, I can tag them... but I don't have to do any of that.
6. Make Inbox Zero a regular hygiene task. Getting to Inbox Zero every day is pretty hard-core. Getting to Inbox Zero every month is not so bad.
7. Unsubscribe from everything. You will find so much stuff by seeking it out that you'll have no time to consume it all. Why, on top of that, would you add things coming to you passively?
8. Declare bankruptcy on non-essentials. Do go back and check for things you really should take care of, like tax paperwork and out-of-the-blue emails from friends you haven't seen in ten years.
I have started making TODO lists which deal with what I have to do the next day instead of writing long lists for the entire week or month. I review my list before I go to sleep and write down the tasks for the next day.
I've found that 'something' always at hand and with the absolute least cost of usage has helped enormously. Paper and Fisher pen, PalmPilot, Treo, now todo program on my phone.
Whatever is the quickest to get me to a list of reminders that I can choose from.
And I do best when I can sort those by effort required to complete. Refill cat food bowls, minimal effort, QED. Find contractor for back porch rework, not as simple. So I break it down and find a smaller step I can do and list that.
Even if I get knocked out of my list, I always have it to get back on track.
Tasks.org is my current tool, after trying many many others.
On my worst days I set a repeating alarm to get my attention and look at the list again. Sometimes exhaustion, sometimes lack of desire, but I have a wife and animals to provide for so one way or the other I make it happen.
Agree. A to do list is my go to option.
If I do not complete the tasks on time, the list grows ominously. When the list becomes gargantuan, I get really scared and end up doing everything in one shot.
Also the joy of scratching off completed tasks is unmatched.
The only to-do list that I've actually used for more than a week is Any.do. I really like how you can organize your tasks vaguely based on time (Today, Tomorrow, Upcoming, Someday). Adding that solves a lot of the author's problems.
I really like this approach. The key thing for me is the omnipresence: having a nice big list next to you all of the time I think would be a great reminder of your priorities. I'll try this out!
Yep. There's a value to also keeping a maybe someday list but a to do list really does need to be tractable. I've known people who kept these ever-expanding multi-page to do lists and never got anything done.
I'm really not much of a productivity "system" person but David Allen has some good ideas around completing quick tasks, to do lists, breaking things up into manageable chunks, calendars being for events that are tied to a specific time/date, etc.
I can't say that I'm perfect at this, but I've found that to-do lists are a great way tool for helping me not think about things: Knowing that something is on my list and so I won't forget about it allows me to push it out of my head far more effectively.
To-do lists are useful to an extent, but I’ve found making things time-bound to be the way to go. I wrote an article about this a couple of years back and I’m still using this approach with slight modifications along with a weekly planning session on Sundays: https://www.lostbookofsales.com/why-to-do-lists-often-stink-...
We all have different needs due to having different personalities. I need to be careful that I don’t get into a “checking things off my list” mode, as sometimes I’m feverishly doing trivial things on that list to keep myself feeling busy and distracted from what are one or two important but difficult things to work on.
So one heuristic I do is is try to start my day setting my “intentions” — identifying a handful of things on the list I would be pleased to have finished by days end even if absolutely nothing else on the list is touched.
My personal favorite is Cal Newport's idea of keeping a list of things you need todo and time blocking them into whatever schedule you have.
e.g. keep a "todo" list of some kind (or write down everything you remember) and block off specific time to work on each thing. This 1) forces you to pick some things to prioritize 2) gives you time to make progress on them 3) doesn't drop the ball on if that thing was "done" because it's still on the other list.
During the day you just focus on your calendar and what is next.
The biggest way todo lists have never worked for me is they make everything feel overwhelming. This method helps force me to pick and make progress. I don't always follow it closely because at the end of the day it's just a way to trick your self to prioritize given how much time you have in the day.
As for the post-it/to-do lists, what helps me is to develop a point system (scale of 0~5 or whatever) and assign a point next to a criterion at the end of the day, depending on how well you think the task was accomplished. It works even better if the tasks are something that's repeated weekly (e.g. organisation of your living space), as you'll end up with a collection of points.
While easy and non time-consuming, it's powerful in a way that it creates a feedback process. Of course, there's bunch of different reward systems people use besides scoring high points, like earning oneself a cigar, for example. So you can develop one that suits you for more fun.
Making a list of the things I need to do helps me stay on track and doubles as a memory aid. I have to remind myself as well that the work/tasks need to be completed regardless how I feel about the situation.
Motivation ebbs and flows, but if one is not completing at least some tasks, it makes it that much harder to create momentum
One thing I find surprisingly effective is that I write a todo list on paper every morning, and check items off as they get done. I keep a longer todo list of personal goals on a Trello board.
At least for me the key is to aggressively wean my to-do list, keeping items on it that I'm highly likely to complete in the next few days, as opposed to an ever-growing wish list.
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