Tip: Simple to-do list

There has to be purpose in your day. If you expect to be a leader, you must be sure that every day takes you a little bit further on the journey towards your goals. Simple tools like to-do lists will make complex things happen, but there are some considerations to be made.

Photo by Outburner Flickr CC

What it's not

A to-do list is not a place for discussion, it's not a wish list, it's a clear intention. If you make the list too long, and at the end of the day you have half of it left - you teach your sub-conscious that you're not capable, that your not good enough. Consider the opposite, at mid-afternoon you have done all the things for today. You have time left for more and start to do one or two things planned for tomorrow. Imagine how great this will make you feel. Lesson: Put few and achievable things on your list, things that are steps on the road towards the goal.

Use the simplest means possible

In the Get-things-done tradition, your planned actions could well be organized in a system. If you group related actions in folders, they make up projects. Projects can be grouped into life areas. Lesson: Grouping actions and projects is really worthwhile, if you go through them all weekly and make sure they still make sense to you. If not, you will build up a mountain of irrelevant notes that bring you down.

Here are some practical ways of organizing actions:

• Paper and Pen - the Hipster PDA project must be among the simplest organizers around. Cheap, effective, works everywhere with only one drawback - it's not easy to share.


• Teambox - If you work in projects with people outside your company, Teambox is a wonderful tool. It is free for the first three projects and task-lists are easily shared.


• Evernote - As an open manager, I like to share my task-list, to give people the chance of commenting and influencing what I do. I'm in charge of my life, I decide what is on my list, but I'm willing to listen. Evernote is another free tool, with the advantage that you can easily share your documents and even access them from any computer or mobile device.


• Google tasks - Another simple and free way is to use Google tasks, it's also shareable and integrates easily into many other softwares. Rick Broida has made a great how-to on bnet, if you would like to investigate it further.

So how do I do it? Personally I use several tools, Evernote to share, Teambox when the team is spread out, paper and pen when I'm out of the office. New apps and programs are springing up every day, I don't feel the need to be locked into just one system since I do weekly reviews.

The big secret to planning success

There is only one secret to planning actions: Do weekly reviews! Be ruthless, look through all your lists, files, notes and even a "brain scan". Get it all out once a week, have a look and throw out all that is not necessary.

This is leadership in its purest form, throw out the unwanted and unnecessary that will get you lost and waste your energy. Focus the important and constructive.

Any thoughts, any tips, any stories?

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Comments

[Paulo Calado]

Perfect!! Perfect tips for simple things that so often become difficult or hard to achieve and lead to frustration!!

There it is...#21 - Evernote!
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/2011.html

thanks!

[Tip: How to remember things &l]

[...] like the simple to-do list, but you need to capture the ideas. The objective is “Mind like Water”, a zen koncept. [...]

[Paulo]

Check out Upvise (http://www.upvise.com/)
It's like google tasks and Evernote all into one and everywhere!