I admit I am not very good at working with todo lists. The problem is, not there inflexibility time wise, or their attempt to plan your entire day, its their ability to keep dictating to what you haven’t done, because you listed too many tasks to do! I have seen such things as giving each task a priority level, such as a ABCDE system, or giving tasks no value, and having each day only 3 “big” things to work on and thats your main focus. After reading Getting Things Done by David Allen, I’ve become more adept at doing tasks, but not at applying his full system. So I hodgepodge it for now. Till I find at least, a good task manger program in Linux. To me, its really not about general tasks, its about tasks to be done in a project by project setting. Becoming good at planning projects, I find helps more tasks get done, even when I work on the non-essentials ones,like emails. or reading blogs leisurely.
My Current Major Tools For This Right Now
I still write mostly on paper, since I’m not allowed to use a laptop at work. So, I do end up with notes, and other writings all over the place. So now, instead of scraps of paper, I carry two legal pads. One is my to do list, and the other I write my articles, copywriting and budget stuff. Then, I dump everything I written for the day once I get home from my job, and place accordingly to my blogs, websites, etc. Backups of the documents I write can be placed at Google Docs, since I write them without special formatting. To do Lists stay on paper. I do write on the todo pad with synopses of articles, mindmaps, and other general planning things. I don’t try to set more than 3 days ahead worth of tasks on my to do pages. I have a bit of a gap thou, by not having a weekly plan. I just have monthly and a daily, for now.
For things that require a bit more than writing an article, say like creating an entire website start to finish, I create a physical folder for it, and since its my business, a codename. Project Iris, eagle, foxtrot, blue cheese, Churchill, Leroy, or m2-73d4m, it doesn’t matter what you name your projects after. I like to keep a naming schemes using generals of the past. This gives my business a bit of fun and project organization at the same time. I then can place documents, to dos, and references needed into this folder, for reminders, since each project sometimes cannot be worked on exclusively. I will get more deeper into projects later, for now I want to focus on task management and planning.
Learning To Plan
Most of us have a paycheck to paycheck mentality. Thinking beyond to years, or months ahead is a hard habit to start. Even if circumstances cause for new plans, its better to have some ideas or benchmarks you need to work on. For example, I have some tasks I need to start on when certain milestones are met(for example, when I incorporate, when I meet some other tasks, or profits). Instead of saying when we hit this milestone, we will do this. Instead, I would look into the next task when it hits the beginning of October. This creates limits, and expectations to keep moving, regardless of whats happening. I have planned till about December for now. Each month has about 10 or less goals, changes, tasks, or projects. The sheet that this is written on, is posted up on my magnetic board. This creates a viewable Timeline and a schedule to follow by. Earlier I mentioned that I have a gap, by not having weekly plans, but daily plans. If you wanted to, you can form up weekly plans from that month to month schedule. Doing this monthly planing does make your business a lot less mystic about what you need to do. Even if you got a task out of order, or a milestone that cannot be reached, due to constraints. The most important part thing to take away from this is to use it to pull your home business out of the dream stage, and moving to reality. It also brings some sanity, into what really needs to be accomplished.
On the second part of this article I will dive deeper into the project aspect. So stay tuned!
