How I stopped forgetting things and made my cat happy
The Problem
Do you constantly forget what you should be done? Do your boss and your significant other get at you because you haven’t done what you promised? Did your cat use to stay hungry for another day because you had forgotten to buy him some food?
I used to be such a person but now I’m not. Today I’m going to share the way I managed to start doing everything I need and let my cat eat every day and be happy.
The Solution
I guess my approach is not original. It’s based on thousands of articles and webinars I’ve seen in the Internet and techniques I’ve tried using before. I’m sure there are a lot of people using the same system to get everything done, but it looks too simple to them to be worth sharing.
But I’ll try. All you need is:
A single list of tasks broken down into 3 sections processed regularly in 3 different ways.
Simple as it is. Everything else is details. And you can find the details below.
A single list…
You don’t need a separate list for home task, another list for work tasks and God knows how many other lists for each of your contexts. Remember, all your tasks should go in one list. Of course you can tag tasks in this list, or do anything you want with it, but it should be a single list.
Several to-do lists distract you, they destroy singularity of yourself. Every time you add another contextual to-do list you make one step closer to stop using all of them. I used to create contexts and I know how complicated the process of adding new task become.
But simplicity of the process is crucial for your effectiveness. Let me explain why.
When some new task appears usually you start thinking about it. Doesn’t matter what you were doing but incoming email, colleague request, or friend’s question will interrupt your current activity. And the longer you think about new request the harder will be to return to what you had been doing. And if you just ignore it you will definitely forget about it. But you don’t want to. That’s why you just need to write it down quickly and get back to your current work. You should do this automatically.
- You don’t forget about the new task.
- You don’t lose focus.
- Everybody is happy.
Having several lists, or contexts, or projects will do this process too complicated to be automatic, and thus not distracting.
…broken down into 3 sections…
You don’t need to do all the tasks today. Some of them could be done later this week, other could be done sometime. Seeing a huge list of tasks left by the end of the day is demotivating. But seeing an empty list of tasks to be done today before going to bed will let you sleep like a baby.
That’s why you should break down your list into the following parts:
- Today
- This Week
- Later
In most cases you know when a task should be done. If you don’t you just add it into Today part and when you have time you do it or move it to an appropriate part of your list. This approach will let you focus only on the task you’ve planned for today.
…processed regularly in 3 different ways.
The last part of my efficiency statement is about actual using the list of tasks. There are 3 ways you process your list and each has it’s own regularity.
1. Weekly
Every Sunday evening you scan your Later section of the list and put all the tasks you need to do the next week into This Week section.
2. Daily
Every day you scan your This Week section and move the tasks you should do tomorrow to Today section. This also should be done on Sunday after Weekly review.
3. When you are idle or going to change your location.
Every time you have nothing to do or you are going to move from home to work or somewhere else you just scan your Today section and identify tasks you should do next if there are any. Checking the before moving somewhere. will let you remember what should you do on your way to the new destination. For example buy milk or fill your car. Once task is done you just remove it from the list and observe it become shorter.
That’s it!
Isn’t it simple? 1 list, 3 sections, 3 types of actions. Of course you need to get used to the approach, but it’s simplicity makes adaptation quick and painless.
I can’t imagine my live without the list now. And the best thing about it that I do not notice using it. It’s just like remembering things but much more effective.
Please note that I didn’t mention any particular tools or apps. This is because almost any list or ToDo app could be adapted to the approach. I let you do your own choice.
Now look at your pet. Didn’t you forget to feed him? If you did, please try my approach and your pet will always be as happy as mine. If you didn’t, still try it and I promise you won’t regret.
P.S. A free example as a bonus: right after finishing the post I went to my list and added “Review and edit ToDo list story” task to This Week section of my list.
