Free-Style Time Management: Done List Instead of To-Do List
Excerpt from the unpublished book Untrammeled Thoughts. There Is No Box.
When I worked alone at home for my ebook publishing company, I had no boss, no colleagues. My to-do list was growing out of control. Every day it got longer and more daunting. There was no way I could keep pace, much less catch up. The list was intended as a way for me to prioritize and get organized, but it became a chore in and of itself.
Then I shifted from to-do list to done list, and that change made a big difference in my state of mind and productivity.
My done list recorded what I actually did. Each day was on a separate page. I categorized what I did into four main areas: family, maintenance, business, and personal. And each of those categories had subcategories. For instance, maintenance included health, food, and house. Personal included writing, reading, languages, TV, and other entertainment.
Before, time seemed to disappear. The day would end and I would wonder how I managed to waste so much time. My focus would be on all the to-do list tasks that I hadn’t gotten to. With my done list, I looked back and saw what I had accomplished and enjoyed. And the categories gave me a feel for what I actually did with my time, showing my patterns, making sense out of what seemed to be chaos.
Of course, I still kept a tickler/reminder list and a short, manageable list of things I planned and expected to do that day. But the focus was on the done list. It felt good adding a new item to the done list.
While my circumstances are different now, I still keep a done list. And now I can add writing this lense to that list.
