www.fastcompany.com: For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been on a mission to create the perfect to-do list. I’ve tested multiple apps from Evernote, Any.do, to Wunderlist. I’ve used physical and digital post-its. Earlier this year, I even attempted to keep a bullet journal. It didn’t last long–I stopped having the patience to draw symbols and make my pages colorful and pretty. Eventually, I realized that the thing that worked for me is The Ivy Lee Method–a very simple system where I write down no more than six things I want to get done that day, in the order I want to complete them.
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I'm someone who tends to be disorganized, and this year in college I'm determined to do EXACTLY the opposite! Being organized can be a struggle, and though I'm on top of it now, I'm always looking for better or more efficient ways to keep track of my life. This article was really cool in that it encouraged you to try different methods, but one that stood out for me that I could use in my everyday to-do and agenda was dividing to-do lists into smaller lists, by category and by type of thing. This makes a lot of sense to me for separating, say, academic, social, and personal tasks, or events and classes from assignments, and I'm actually going to give it a shot now that I've read it here! I also like the idea of 'designing a day' as opposed to managing time - I already split things into chunks on my Google calendars, but even that mental shift could be something really good for my point of view on working and how I split up those minutes and hours - designing something makes it sound creative and fun! Managing... not so much.
It's a testament to something that I am a junior at Carnegie Mellon University and I still haven't figured out how to manage my time properly. However, I have recently recognized that for me, one of the main problems is finding focus and motivation to actually begin working on projects and to be able to maintain that drive once I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore. The last Fast Company article I read and commented on was also about productivity and suggested putting together a collection of photos to motivation and remind yourself why you are working and what you are working towards. This article also addresses the idea of maintaining motivation through keeping a "done" list. This is something I encounter a lot in the School of Drama and particularly as a part of the PTM office. I will be working on homework when several unexpected distractions pop up that I have to address right then and there, maybe it's a student who needs help with a technical question or a lumber delivery. Either way, sometimes your day doesn't go as planned, but that doesn't mean you didn't get a lot done. Keeping a log of what you did get done, no matter if it was on your list for the day or not, will help you maintain momentum a lot better than staring at a half-finished to-do list at the end of the day.
This concept of shifting from "managing my time" to "designing my day" really speaks to me. Management, in my mind, is something of a chore. Further, management is reactive: It occurs in response to an event. Instead, design is proactive. It involves planning to create a certain experience. Thus, I can say "Oh, I'll do some homework during x block of time, so that I can hang out with my friends later that evening" instead of "I only have z amount of free time, so I'll get my homework done here, there, and there." The shift in perspective is really minor, but the change in language means everything. By framing my life in the positive, rather than defining myself with constraints, I've found that I am on the whole a happier and more productive person because I am able to live in a mindset where I actually look forward to doing my homework.
This worked out perfectly. I just made a to-do list, writing a comment or two was at the top of the list and lo and behold, the first article I pick is about to do lists. I am all about to do lists to the point where I lose my mind if everything isn’t written down. This summer when I all of my task either took place or started at my desk it was really easy to have a hand written note that was always on my desk. At school who knows where I might be working - PTM, my room, that really nice porch in Gates - so a paper to do list is difficult to maintain. I have resorted to using Wunderlist and MyHomework on my phone where I loose some ability to customize my layout. This means I have a lot of different lists which can be overwhelming. This article has inspired me to think more closely about my to do list design. I think I might want to try a hand written list because I can organize and group the list as I want to. I am currently staring at a long hand written list and so far it is helping me get tasks done (seeing as I am doing comments before Saturday). I think I will have to try a few methods from this list and hopefully one of them works well for me. I usually use “METHOD #1: DIVIDE YOUR LIST INTO SECTIONS” but a lot of the other methods seem valuable and I hope to try them.
Literally all of these methods are similar to the things we talked about in Production Resource Management last year, in the "Getting Things Done" section. I think the main thing that I took away from that lesson in class, as well as this list, is the idea of making context based to do lists. It is such an obvious idea, but it was such a revolutionary concept. It makes so much more sense to make to do lists for every specific situation, like making lists for different people and different locations. This is something I have been trying to utilize more in my every day life, though I am just really bad at keeping to to do lists in general. Whenever I make one, I find it very useful just to organize all of my tasks in one place, obviously, but I can never seem to do it consistently. I also really like the part of the article that mentioned having a "love to do list." Last year, I would schedule in time with my boyfriend so that I would make sure I was doing things that I enjoyed in addition to all of my tasks. This year, I schedule in Netflix time. It is a huge mental relief to know that you have a break scheduled.
One thing that I really need to work on is making a good to-do list. The one thing that I find to be true is that your list doesn’t have to be a complex mesh of intertwined lists. The list that works best for me is the simple, easy to read list that allows me to see everything that I need to do. One of the biggest problems that I have is being able to stick to a list. The concept of it has always seemed amazing but it is a matter of ingraining it into my daily schedule so I can’t live without it. I don’t feel that I am at a point in my life where I have that much to do. It also could just be that I don’t realize how bad I actually need a list. I would be truly interested to see if I did start making a prioritized list if I would be at all more productive. One day, one day I will get it.
I have had a love-hate relationship with my agenda for as long as I have had one. I use it in spurts, counter-intuitively abandoning it when I have a lot to remember (the long list daunts me to the point of task avoidance), and using it when there's not much to put in it, and when I feel like I have the time to use it. Some of these tips seemed valid and useful, but I feel as though many of this could be boiled down to "divide and conquer". Instead of having a single to-do list, having different kinds of to-do lists inherently makes each one smaller. I feel like these kinds of methodologies would be very useful and applicable to someone who is easily daunted by a long list, like myself. However, other tips here - like the love-to-do list and making a list public - are simply gilding the lily, making the act of curating a to-do list more of a chore than actually executing something from the list.
The most surprising thing about this article is when it said to make your to-do list public or rather share it with a friend. This is a really sound and smart idea because of social pressure. People are pressured to wear certain clothing just because of social pressures some time. I see this working if you share your to-do list with a buddy who does the same. This would be cool to try out for a point in time to see if it actually works. The biggest idea I will take away is making manageable to-do list that allow you to actually get things done. However, I think that another major thing I will take away is the idea of to-done lists. In general we focus too much on the negative, the points off rather than amazing rest of the work or we deal on the miss speak instead of the great conversation. Recognizing the hard work done is an important step to making sure you are successful. I think it is an impetus to work more and I will try implementing this in my daily routine.
The key to most to-do lists and organizing your life is to find a system that works for you and with you, not against you. There is a system and a way of organizing for everyone, you just have to find the one that works for you. One of the biggest take-aways from a book that we read in PRM (“Getting Things Done”) is to get it all out of your head, which this article touches on. Use your mental processing power to solve and work through the problems, not remembering the problems you have to solve and work through. A lot of the methods that the author talks about fit under this umbrella. For example, when you batch similar tasks together, you are using the system of keeping your head in the same workflow. You refer to the list that you have made over the past how many hours or days and you work through it. Here’s to hoping that these articles encourage everyone to find a system that works for them.
I can’t help but be pulled in by an article about to-do lists, since so much of my time and day is organized by them. The idea that you should only write down a certain number of to-dos for the day is interesting, but not really feasible, especially for production management. It’s difficult for me to make anything but a comprehensive to-do list, at least while in school. There are so many small tasks that need to be remembered. If they aren’t written down, it’s inevitable that I’ll forget.
Having said that, there’s a lot of great advice here. I especially like the suggestion that it can be helpful to group particular tasks together and to try to plan your day around your cyclical energy patterns. My energy level has a big effect on how long it takes me to complete a task and I never really considered planning around it in a purposeful way.
As someone who lives by To- Do lists I was thoroughly excited by the prospects of this article hoping that I would learn something new that perhaps I had not thought of before. I was surprised to find that most of these are tactics that I already use daily. However, I was interested in the ideas of creating done lists and lists for love or for other things outside of work and daily living. There is a lot of possibility in these additional lists in helping to aid in one’s perspective of oneself as well as the progression of self beyond the tasks we have to complete. I often find myself getting frustrated when I don’t get enough crossed of a list in a day and taking a moment each day to recognize all that you have done in a day, with or without the creation of a list seems like a very beneficial way to end the day and complete the circle of work.
Productivity and time management is something that I need to work on. It is one of the most important skills that a student in this program needs. I am still learning on how to do this well. I have tries multiple methods through the year so far. I have liked some more than others, but I am still not completely set on one that I like. I do really like to make to-do lists instead of a schedules because schedules for my entire day just make me feel very restricted and feel like there is no flexibility for when life throws you a curveball or something unscheduled pops up in your day. I think the method that I liked most in this article was the SUG method witch is kind of like the urgent and important method that Molly taught us in PTM. I like this method and I think I will continue to try to utilize it and tweak it a little to fit me better became it allows me to prioritize. It makes it so I see what’s more important to finish and not just what I want to finish.
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