My task lists have become a problem. They’ve been growing steadily, and it is now not unusual for me to have 20+ tasks on the list as I start the morning.It’s not a sustainable approach. Even though I am knocking a good number of tasks off the list each day, it still keeps growing. There are some days I look at the list and I cannot even fathom where to begin.Today I will talk about my experiment with open, closed and hybrid task lists and the things I am trying to keep myself working. I’m going to call this Episode 84: Tackling the Task List.
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None of us are good at everything. Many people say to “focus on your strengths.” But weakness in some areas of our life have more consequences than others, and ignoring them might not be an option. If you are in a situation where avoidance won’t work, you need to create systems to support your weaknesses. This article will help you determine weaknesses that need support, and give some examples of how to create a system.
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For a lighter Monday, I thought I would give you the top signs you know you're addicted to lists:
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There are many different ways that you can use to beat procrastination. In fact, whole books have been written about ways to get going. Here are the 5 techniques I use most often to get me going:
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Filing papers leads to overwhelmed file drawers unless you purge them regularly. It’s not just papers, though. It’s also all the electronic stuff that you save, both files and emails. It’s easy to tell ourselves it doesn’t matter because of essentially unlimited mailbox and disk drive sizes. However, the more we shove into a cabinet, be it real or virtual, without ever cleaning it out, the easier it becomes to lose things and spend hours trying to find the information. In Episode 83 we will talk about the need for retention policies - and some ideas on how to implement them.
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A tickler file is one to manage date-sensitive information. It can be implemented for paper or electronic, and the classic version contains 43 folders. This can be overly burdensome, though, if you don't deal with a lot of date-sensitive material. Today's article is about simplifying the classic approach to ticklers.
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Scope creep is when you are asked to add things into a job to get it to done. It means that "done" becomes a moving target, and can cause things go be in a perpetual state of work.
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My mother had a saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.” In spite of her being a supremely organized person, her belief in out of sight out of mind led to piles of paper on her kitchen counter, desk and other places in her house. I also have a tendency to pile things in order to keep them on the front of my mind. This indicates a breakdown of my systems. And on the flip side, once things are in my trusted system, I have a tendency to ignore them if they are not right in front of my face. . In today’s podcast, Episode 82, I will address both sides of this concept.
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Feature creep is not just something that happens in software. The over-complication of devices that we use can lead to a near constant level of feature creep with every area of our lives.
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A reader asked me, "What are your thoughts on 'busy work'? For some whose jobs are based more on time than production, it's easy to get caught up doing some busy work to justify one's existence." I realized that there are actually two types of busy work: that which we engage in when our time is our own, and that we engage in to fill working hours owed to someone else. But we can turn busy work into productive time with a bit of planning and action.
