If you’re still using to-do lists, ditch them right away.
No more to-do lists.
Here are 7 reasons why:
– lists are not time-constrained
– it’s difficult to prioritize items from a list
– it’s too easy to add new items on the list
– deleting items will make your efforts invisible
– to-do items may take different effort to complete
– crossing off items will make you want to add more
– it’s depressing to not finish your list at the end of the day
Oh, but I can’t just give up my to-do list! How will I keep track of everything I need to do?
[insert here further exclamations that express your shock, disbelief and terror]
[take a break and breath...]Welcome to the time-boxed calendar, my friend. Scary at first, it can become your best friend in no time.
A time-boxed calendar is a calendar in which you assign a certain amount of time to each task you plan to complete.
Here are 2 steps to get one calendar view for everything your glorious self has to get done:
πΊπππ 1. π°ππππππππ ππππ ππππππππ ππππππ ππ ππππ ππππ ππππ ππππππ ππ.
The easiest way is to have all the calendars shared. Your work one, the personal one, your partner’s or the family calendar – all shared. If you can’t share your work calendar, invite your work-self to your personal-appointments.
The idea is to have all appointments visible in one single calendar view.
πΊπππ 2. π¨π π πππππ ππ-π π ππ ππππ ππππππ ππ.
Professional, personal, doesn’t matter. In the end, there is only one of you who needs to get everything done, isn’t it?
If you manage to share all the calendars, it’s easy. If not, decide which calendar you’ll send the invites to block the time from. The respective calendar will become your time-boxed calendar.
For example, I can’t share the details of my corporate work calendar, so I made it my time-boxed calendar. When I add new tasks, I set up a new appointment in my work calendar and invite my personal calendar for visibility.
Bonus step (ππππππππ): πππππ πππ π ππππ ππππππ ππ.
This is a great way to quantify how much time you spend each week on different types of activities.
All you have to do is:
- create buckets of activities
- assign a color to each bucket
- use the right color for each new calendar entry
A few important notes about color coding:
- Make sure your activity buckets are exclusive. If you have activities that could fall in 2 or more buckets, you’ll get yourself confused.
- Even if you forget to assign the color to new appointments at the time you make them, you can always go back and edit them
- Incoming meeting requests will show in the standard calendar color. You can review them, accept or decline and assign them to the right activity bucket.
- Each week, inspect the activity buckets you spent the most time the previous week. Is the balance right? Perfect, you’re doing well. Notice an imbalance? It’s up to you to adjust what you focus on.
Remember:
No more to-do lists.
Ditch them.
Example of a color-coded, time boxed calendar