I am a list maker and have lived by my To-Do Lists or Task Lists for decades.
As far as I’m concerned a manageable and portable T0-Do List is the NUMBER ONE tool I use to manage my time. In the not too far distant past I was completely in love with my Franklin Planner. This is what mine looked like- Classic size, two pages per day. I am not into cute pages or lovely quotes when it comes to my To-Do List, or Calendar for that matter- too cluttered!
Three and a half years ago I still used a paper To-Do List and a paper Calendar- both in my Franklin Planner. Although I used my Palm Pilot for all of my shopping lists, memos, notes and contacts, I felt that it was much faster to manually write down tasks, errands and appointments. In some ways it is still faster to write things down than to input them into a mobile device BUT- then my Palm Pilot started to fail and I gradually became aware of Smart Phones– whatever they were. It began to dawn on me that I needed to keep up with the times. My organizing clients were starting to use smart phones and I needed to know how to use them so that I could teach clients how to use these new toys efficiently.
Making the transition from my little flip phone/Palm Pilot/Franklin Plannersystem to a Smart Phone was TRAUMATIC! My life was in that Palm Pilot/Franklin Planner combo and I wasn’t sure smart phones could do everything I needed them to do. I researched for many weeks- iPhone or Android, big screen or small screen, front facing camera? I finally settled on a Droid and now cheerfully bicker with some of my daughters over which is better- Mac or Droid.
Cherice has coached me with her organizing skills for a long time. Trust her…she is knowledgeable when it comes to managing time and tasks.
She has helped me immensely. Believe me, I ill be reading and studying this blog post for a while…. What a tutorial!
In addition to all of that she is a dear and trusted friend. I will add her to my blog list!
Great post Cherise – I’ve struggled with calendars for years and I used to carry a similar planner around for years (though mine had Dilbert cartoons!). But I just couldn’t stick with it until I got my Smartphone. Now I’ve actually managed to stick with the calendar habit and I check it daily. Now I need to start working on the to-do list aspect of it – if only to get it out of my head and sleep better. These are some good tips.
Thanks for the kind words Adrian. I’ll be following up with more posts that go beyond the mechanics and I will post about which mobile apps I use and how using Task lists the right way can save lots of time and headache.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment Alison. Stay tuned for several more posts going into more detail about how to actually use your To-Do list.
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Cherice has coached me with her organizing skills for a long time. Trust her…she is knowledgeable when it comes to managing time and tasks.
She has helped me immensely. Believe me, I ill be reading and studying this blog post for a while…. What a tutorial!
In addition to all of that she is a dear and trusted friend. I will add her to my blog list!
Thanks so much Cynthia for the strong endorsement. Your kind words mean a great deal to me.
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Great post Cherise – I’ve struggled with calendars for years and I used to carry a similar planner around for years (though mine had Dilbert cartoons!). But I just couldn’t stick with it until I got my Smartphone. Now I’ve actually managed to stick with the calendar habit and I check it daily. Now I need to start working on the to-do list aspect of it – if only to get it out of my head and sleep better. These are some good tips.
Thanks for the kind words Adrian. I’ll be following up with more posts that go beyond the mechanics and I will post about which mobile apps I use and how using Task lists the right way can save lots of time and headache.
I am a huge GTD fan and use OmniFocus to manage all my tasks. I love reading about how others do it. Great, detailed post!
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment Alison. Stay tuned for several more posts going into more detail about how to actually use your To-Do list.
I’m adding you to feedly. Will be watching. :)
Thanks so much Alison.I take requests- tee hee.