3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys to Coping with a To-do List that Runneth Over

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Earlier this week, I wrote a post at the Porch Swing Chronicles about lists and priorities. More philosophical than practical, it encapsulated the attitude I try to have on those days when the list gets ditched for other things.

But what about the days when time stretches out before you, but your list still seems too long? Time isn't the issue -- or not the main one anyway -- but you just keep getting in your own way.

What then?

Here are a few things to try on those days when procrastinating (or going back to bed) feels like a better alternative than tackling the list.

Cross things off before you start. Take a look at your list. What are you realistically not going to do today due to time constraints, mood or circumstances? Excise those items from today's list and save them for another day.

Celebrate what you accomplish. Yesterday, I finally got my Christmas decorations put in the crawlspace, where they belong, but I was so guilt-ridden and embarrassed by the fact that it took me until MARCH to do this that I sucked all the joy out of getting it done. It was only when I forced myself to take in the beautiful empty space I'd created (finally!) that I began to let go of the guilt and realize the most important thing: this is no longer on my list! The myriad reasons why it took me so long to get to this task are best saved for another day.

Keep track of what you've done, not what you've left undone.  Most days, we do much more than we give ourselves credit for. Instead of crossing things off your list, highlight each item you accomplish. Did you do a few things that weren't on the list at all? Routine things like meals, laundry, emptying the dishwasher? Add them to the list and highlight them as well. At the end of the day, sit back and congratulate yourself for a day well-spent.

To-do lists are supposed to work in our service, not the other way around. When you find yourself feeling mastered by your list instead of being the master of it, take a deep breath and find a way to show that list who's really in charge.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys for Creating a Master List

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Last weekend, I dug into my various ways of keeping track of things I needed to do and did some streamlining. As I wrote yesterday, this not only helped me to get more organized, it also revitalized my excitement for all the projects I'd taken on. As I worked, a few key guidelines emerged.

Begin with a plan. I have a system for keeping track of my to-dos -- one that's meant to avoid little slips of paper scattered everywhere. For school, I use a steno pad with a separate column dedicated to each class. Once I knew my TED Talk addiction wasn't going away, I dedicated a two-page spread (with room to grow) in my Brainstorm Book to them, so I could keep track of the ones I "thought I might use sometime" for class. Finally, I keep track of daily, run-of-the-mill to-dos in a spiral-bound  notebook (when I'm on the go) and/or my page-a-day desk calendar (when I'm at home)...or in the classic I need to see it piles I can't seem to stop making. Admittedly, this last part needs some work.

Trust your styles. Why not just make one long list? Because it stresses me out. Partway through this process, as I closed window after window and organized my lists in a way that made sense to me, I began to feel energized. My default (all those open windows and reminder piles) had gotten out of hand, and so what I was doing was filing my to-dos in places that made sense to me and increased the likelihood that they'd get done. By filing things visibly (i.e. on lists), I could categorize things but still keep them accessible. One of the best things I came up with was the master list of all the links I wanted to get back to. Simple and functional, it let me put everything in one location that made sense.

Stay focused. While creating that wonderful a master list of links, it was tempting to just curl up and read all the good stuff I'd found, but that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. If they'd gone unread long enough to linger, they could wait a little longer.

Finally, don't forget to finish what you started. I had a deadline, and the ticking clock added an undesirable layer of stress, making it tempting to stop before every last paper was put into its file just so I could eliminate the pressure. In retrospect, that might actually have been a good thing. Knowing that if I didn't finish before I left for my engagement I'd have to face an unfinished mess when I came back motivated me to keep going so I could come home and not only relax, but celebrate my mind-freeing organization.

And the icing on the cake? Going through this process inspired three blog posts. And this morning, I knew just where to go when I wanted to work on one of my articles.

Functional organization, built on what comes naturally. Gotta love STYLE.

3 Keys Thursday: My Three Indispensible Items for Managing a Crazy Busy Semester

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

This semester, I am teaching three classes -- two psychology classes and one freshman seminar. Three classes doesn't sound like very many, but, judging from the juggling act I've been performing this semester, three separate preps are enough to keep me running.

While I'm still searching for the organizational system that keeps the paper pile-up in check at home, I have found a few tools that keep my thoughts (mostly) organized:

• A planner with a day-by-day view and a monthly view. I got a great spiral-bound planner at the dollar store in which I keep track of lessons and due dates. I use the day-by-day pages as a lesson planner and the month-at-a-glance view for due dates, which I've color-coded by class.

• One to-do list. Last year, I created a single sheet to keep track of the details of my planning, but this semester, I've gone back to simple lined paper -- or pretty much any paper I can get my hands on when I need to make a list. Although the single page checklist format worked when I was teaching two classes, it fell apart when I was teaching three. I haven't given up on it entirely -- once I dig out at the end of the semester, I may re-envision it -- but for now, simpler is better.

• My laptop. For my content-driven psych classes, I live and die by my slide presentations. While I wasn't planning on creating these for my freshman seminar, I've found that the visual does come in handy. I can upload my presentations to the course Moodle, email them to myself so that I can download them and use the classroom computers or even carry a flash drive....but I don't. My Macbook is my security blanket -- even when it refuses to communicate with the classroom PCs.

stockvault.net

This weekend, I'm hoping to make some headway in the paper pile-up department. I've tried a succession of ideas; some have stuck and some have fallen by the wayside, overwhelmed by the sheer  volume of papers produced by three separate sections of students. Regardless of the tweaks I make in that system, however, the three tools above are here to stay. 

There's no way I'd have survived the semester without them.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Organizational Tools Everyone Needs Regardless of Style

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Wait just a minute. I've spent the better part of a year trying to convince you that organizing BY style is the way to go, and now I want to give you one-size-fits-all advice?

Not at all.

Each of these three keys is an important piece of an organizational plan. How you incorporate each one will depend on your styles. In my opinion, everyone needs:

• A to-do list (to manage tasks). The length, location and specificity are up to you. I like having a master list as well as a day-by-day list that I keep on my calendar.  

• Containers with room to grow (to manage stuff). Every container should have a little bit of empty space in it to allow for new additions. I'm not talking about twice the size of what it houses -- just enough room that your whole system doesn't fall apart when you need to add to it.

• A filing system (to manage paperwork). No matter how much we tout "going paperless," nearly all of us need hard copies to some degree.

  

  Fold 'n' File from
  Thirty One Gifts*

  And where there are hard copies, a filing system is necessary. Whether it's a file cabinet loaded with with color-coded, labeled folders, a clear file bin with an equally clear lid, or a lidless box that lets you see the contents at a glance, it's a filing system. If you can easily put things away and retrieve what you need in less than five minutes, it's working. I have more than a half dozen of the fold 'n' file bins (at right) on shelves in various rooms of my house, each dedicated to a specific type of paperwork. As an I need to see it person, I love that this bin is open on top and that it comes in various prints so I have a visual cue of what's where.

Truly paperless? I'm impressed. Chances are you have an online filing system. Just don't forget to back it up regularly.

Organizing by STYLE means the systems may be similar, but their elements work best when personalized. Keep in mind that the purpose of bothering with this whole organization business is to be able to find what you need when you need it.

And if you can be stylish in the process, so much the better.

*Full disclosure on fold 'n' file: I'm a Thirty-One consultant, so I might be a tad biased.

Throwback Thursday: Never Listless

This post first appeared on The Porch Swing Chronicles in November 2014.

I've written before about to-do lists: writing them, using them, conquering them. I've read about them, too -- how to do them, how not to do them, how long/short/organized/detailed they should be. To categorize or not to categorize. Short and simple or long and comprehensive. Day-by-day or one big jumble.

And I keep changing my mind.

To-do lists are a necessary evil. We need them to keep track of the details of our lives, but if we're not careful, they can take over. Living by the list leaves little time for the things that refresh and sustain us. After all, when's the last time you wrote "take a nap" or "curl up with a book" on a to-do list?

My to-do lists vary. When I was working full-time, they were scrawled on scraps of paper and separated by home tasks and work tasks. When I first retired, I kept a master list and culled items from it to add to the daily schedule. These days, I do a little bit of both.

Last Saturday morning, I woke up with a to-do list that could fill a notebook -- or at least it felt that way. Typically, I shy away from writing down every single thing I need to do (especially on days like that) because halfway through the process, I grow weary and depressed from the mere act of considering everything I need to do.

Unfortunately, the alternative is keeping it all in my head (and running the risk of forgetting to do things) and so some days, like last Saturday, I succumb. I dump all of my to-dos (or at least the ones that occur to me at the moment) onto paper and then take stock.

This time, it wasn't the sheer quantity of what I needed to do that threatened to send me back to bed; in terms of length, the list was reasonable. But the amount of space each item took up on the page in no way corresponded to the amount of time each thing would take.

Today is Monday, and I'm still working on that Saturday list. The funny thing is, that's not a bad thing because I sort of suspected it would happen.

Yesterday afternoon, I approached my list with trepidation. I'd written it on Saturday, then started my day, filling it with both on-the-list and off-the-list (routine) items. And a lovely thing happened.

I did most of the things on the list. And the act of checking them off was very fulfilling indeed.

No matter how we do to-do lists, one thing is true in nearly every case. Dumping tasks onto the page frees us from the responsibility of carrying them around, trying to keep track of them. That's what the list is for. And if we make the list, plot out the day and then go about our business, we sometimes find that the list has taken care of itself and we get to check things off.

Not all lists are created equal, however. Some days, I grip my list in my sweaty fist all day long lest I forget to complete something that's on it. And grocery lists? I never leave home without them -- at least not when I know I'm bound for the grocery store.

Slowly, I've come to realize that to-do lists must be fluid. We can't simply make one list and be done with it, and the sooner we make peace with that idea, the more useful (and less stressful) our lists become. In the end, there's really only one thing that's true about all to-do lists.

It's fun crossing things off of them.

Throwback Thursday: Surviving Summer To-Do Lists

This post originally ran on The Porch Swing Chronicles in July 2014.

Last Saturday morning, I lay in bed composing my to-do list and listening to the (metaphorical) clock ticking (I have a very quiet bedside clock). It's nearly the end of July, and although I've made a dent in my to-do list, it remains long enough that I know there's more list than summer.

This is not unusual.

Given the fact that it was Saturday, I knew other people in my house would also want my attention, at least from time to time. As my mental list grew longer and longer, it began to seem increasingly unreasonable, so I adjusted my expectations, narrowing my list to a few key things.

While this is all very reasonable and logical, it does little to shrink the actual list, which crouches like a wild animal waiting to pounce just when I'm celebrating presumed progress.

juxtapost.com

Since I can't add any days to the calendar, I've decided on my own plan of attack in order to preserve the rest of the summer with some semblance of both sanity and accomplishment.

Targeted lists. Within fifteen minutes of getting out of bed on Saturday, I knew I needed to dump the mental list onto paper. I grabbed four sheets of lined paper and wrote a heading on each: WHO, WHAT, WHERE and CP.

• WHO: the catch-all list for the people I've been wanting to get in touch with to schedule a lunch or coffee date.
• WHAT: the standard to-do list.
• WHERE: my errand list.
• CP: Class planning to-do list, perhaps the largest animal in the zoo), broken down into chapters (to read), lessons (to plan) and other miscellaneous, bite-sized tasks. 

Separating the lists by category made each one a little less daunting, allowed me to break enormous tasks (class planning) down into smaller ones and made it easier to find what I was looking for without combing a complex list for a single item. It also allowed me to put similar items together, which made things more efficient. When I'm leaving the house, for example, I need to check only the "where" list to determine the errands I need to run.

Chunked time. Years ago, a friend told me about the Fly Lady website, which advocates, among other things, tackling things in fifteen minute chunks of time. It didn't take me long to become a devotee of timer-setting, a strategy I recommended freely to my elementary students when we discussed tackling organizational tasks that seemed overwhelming.

www.flylady.net

One of Saturday's prime tasks was reclaiming my dining room table. Unfortunately, the table contained many homeless items that ended up being relocated to my office until they could be properly sorted and stored. I set a goal of spending fifteen minutes a day going through everything that got dumped in the office until it all ends up where it belongs. Last night, I discovered that what appeared to be a substantial pile on the counter was actually pretty easy to wrangle, and though my fifteen minutes became 35, the reward was well worth it.

Sampling. When the list is long, it's easy to feel as though I'm making progress in one area at the expense of others. Using the chunked time strategy above, I can make a little progress on several things in one day….and by doing "a little of this and a little of that," I get to keep some variety in my day as well. Admittedly, some days call for a dedicated approach to one task, but sampling a few undesirable tasks (and mixing them in with things I enjoy) helps me to make progress on the stuff I don't wanna do.

Flexibility. I admire people who can set a schedule and stick to it, perhaps because I am rarely one of them. I like flexibility for the same reason I like sampling: there are days I just don't wanna do the things I put on the list. When the items are time sensitive, I don't have a choice, but when they're not and a better offer presents itself, there's often no good reason not to move them to another time. And during the summer, better and more valuable offers (e.g. fun family stuff) seem to pop up often.

Armed with my strategies, I'm ready to tackle the rest of my summer. What strategies work for you?

Throwback Thursday: Organizing Time

This piece on time management first appeared on The Porch Swing Chronicles in June 2012, right after I retired from public education.

I'm always happy when I find a way of organizing things that works for me. I'm especially happy when I find something that helps me organize my time.

To me, time management is a pipe dream. I can't even capture it, let alone manage it. But when I organize my time in a way that makes sense to me (the combination of must do, should do and want to do that I mentioned in my last post), I gain a sense of accomplishment even when the to do list remains long at the end of the day.

One of the best things about summer vacation is that lovely combination. We're not held captive by the must dos, and we have more room for the things that we enjoy, which, ironically, give us more energy to do the things we have to do. Warm days and sunshine help, too.

www.workman.com

When I cleaned out my office at school, I took home my page-a-day to-do list calendar. At first, I wasn't sure what I'd do with it (and I still haven't found it a permanent home - though I do have some ideas). Earlier this week, I tried using it to focus in on only one day's worth of things to do - the third tier in my time management hierarchy.

Tier one is the family calendar - all the appointments we've made, practices we need to shuttle our daughter to, etc. - the must do items. Tier two is my to-do list - a combination of should do and want to do.

Tier three is my page-a-day. Ideally, I fill in each day's page the night before - since I'm a night owl, this works well for me, and it gives me a head start on getting focused on my chosen tasks. First on the page are the items from the family calendar, which I keep on a monthly calendar on my iPad.

Next are items from my to do list - those that are time sensitive take priority over all the others. Since the page is divided into two columns, I follow the age-old time management advice of blocking out time for some things (those go in the left column with scheduled appointments). In the right hand column are those things I hope to accomplish in addition to the things I have scheduled. When that list gets too long, I stop because I've discovered that overbooking my day leads me to accomplish less. When I underbook my day (is there any such thing??), I feel less stressed and, at the end of the day, usually discover that I've done more.

The key thing for me is flexibility. I hate feeling so bound by the calendar that there's no room for spontaneity or fun, and when I see white space on the page, I feel less constricted.

Those of you who are natural time managers are probably shaking your heads - if you're even still reading this. I've tried one calendar, but when it gets too full, I panic. I suppose I could put some of this on the day-by-day view in my iPad, but when it comes to calendars, I'm still very much a pencil and paper kind of girl.

Only one tool is still missing - my long-term project calendar for my writing, teaching and other professional obligations.

Photo by JessicaGale
via Morguefile.

No worries. I'll just go pencil in that purchase.


What time management system works for you? 
I'd love to hear your ideas.