From a to-do list to an effective calendar plan
Creating a to-do list could be a great step towards becoming more organized, but some studies show that a to-do list alone might not be the most productive and effective method of organisation. They say to-do lists have 3 problems:
- Don’t account for time;
- Don’t distinguish between urgent, important tasks and regular tasks;
- Might contribute to stress.
So nowadays the best work trend is to replace to-do lists with calendars. Calendars are great to schedule tasks because they allocate time to the to-dos, making a work piece more manageable instead of piling up things to complete.
But how to organize a calendar that boosts your productivity? Here is what’s behind our Outplanr calendar view design:
Block time. All your tasks will take some time, may it be half an hour, one hour, two hours… The best for your productivity is when you are planning your day see and determinate how much time each task will take and schedule it. If the task is longer than this, you can make it recurring, and it will repeat and sum up.
Plan the week. To get the task-completion rush all you really need is a shorter list. So a daily plan is the best to pick up. Choose the most urgent tasks to do and put them at your calendar; is your day too busy? Move them no another day or assign it to a team mate.
Prioritise. If you have 5 tasks to do in your daily to-do list, where do you start? Pick the ones that need to be tackled now, and mark them as urgent. The ones that can roll out to another day can be a low priority. And you are set for the day.
Focus. The work view will show you only the task you have for today, and you can even filter to the active tasks, to see only what you have on your plane right now. One at a time, no multitasking needed.
Check out. Everyone loves to check-out when the work is done — it’s a great feeling. Start checking out tasks from your Work list and get things done.
Control. Having everything on schedule and under control will reduce stress and help balance work and family time. Organize your work day, focus only on what’s important, avoid distractions and get the well-deserved me-time to relax after a fantastic productive day.
