Time to Make Progress?

Working on your organization and systems means you are making changes – or at least trying to. Meanwhile it’s likely the rest of your life didn’t come to halt simply because you’re determined to make progress. (Even if it did, you might not be exempt from challenges! :o) Each day we deal with any number of things and they affect us – physically, emotionally, and psychologically. And how we’re each affected has countless variations and is further influenced by any number of factors, both those we’re aware of and ones we’re blind to. This is life. When you’re motivated to focus on organizing and your systems, it’s important to consider how the timing corresponds with other factors in your life.

When you are dealing with physical, mental, emotional challenges, making changes in your life can be that much harder. It might even be that you need to wait to attempt changes until these things are under control – or potentially stable. At the very least, limit your efforts to working on small changes and set aside bigger changes for the future.

Even when there are no outside complicating factors, besides normal life, it can be easier to begin with smaller steps. Whether this is the time for you to focus on making progress or it’s better to wait, you can continue to be curious – observing that this endeavor or that family obligation is so time and energy consuming which can help show you how much you can handle at a given moment – after all, we all have our limits.

The time and energy we have to focus on making changes also has a dramatic impact on our progress. Are we realistic about the time and energy it will take for these changes to occur? Again, consider whether it is practical for you to focus on these things or would it serve you better to postpone it for a while.

Where does this specific change fall among the priorities of your life? It can feel like it “should” be the highest, or needs to be. Yet, even if it needs to be high on your list, that doesn’t automatically transform it into the thing you focus on most. (If you say it needs to be high, consider what are the factors that define it as a need as compared to a want.)

Maybe you just really want it to be a high priority. Therefore, what is getting in the way of raising it up? Sometimes it might be as “simple” as setting boundaries with other people – learning to say, no, to both the outside obligations as well as to distractions.

Other times it might not be the time for it to be as high as you want. This means that you make it a priority for it to be raised as other things move out of the way – and maybe organically it becomes a higher priority in your life. Someone in the midst of health issues might not focus on making changes, yet once that is managed, working on getting the kitchen organized moves up the list – becoming a more reasonable change.

It can be extremely frustrating when your motivation for focusing on this one thing doesn’t align well with other parts of your life. And you can decide to focus on them anyway. I only want to urge you to simply consider these factors before adding more to your shoulders:

Physical, mental, or emotional challenges – your own or someone dear to you
Your time and energy
The realistic priority in this moment, for you

Only you can decide whether the timing is suitable for you to focus on organization and your systems. The idea of “do it now” might be appropriate; yet it’s just as possible that doing it now would be counter-productive. Deciding to wait – recognizing that it’s unrealistic in this moment to spend your energy this way – can be a demonstration of wisdom. So, how is the timing aligning with the other factors of your life?

Planning with Fractals in Mind – Review, Sort of

I always appreciate discovering lesser-known things – yes, always, at least when it comes to organizing, time management, productivity, and other things that fascinate me. I wish I could remember how I come across some of them, as is the case with the e-book “Clear Mind, Effective Action” by Jim Stone where he talks about his Fractal Planning system. Are you already rolling your eyes or afraid to read more? Talking about fractals and planning systems might sound intimidating or like a non sequitur, yet this is the type of thing I’ve encouraged all of you to do – at least to some degree – use what works from the systems around us and then find ways to adjust for the parts that don’t work as well.

Therefore, let’s talk about his approach, fractals and all. What do you think of when you hear the term fractals? The way he envisions fractals is as “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-sized copy of the whole” which he says is how Wikipedia (at the time of writing) defines it. What is critical about fractals in his view is that they surround us and “creative productivity (like most business projects) grew via fractal processes” so a successful planning tool would incorporate fractal awareness into it.

He offers several different ways to envision fractals around us. One of those is a tree, where you take a main branch off a tree and it looks like a smaller tree. If we continue, taking a branch (he refers to this as a sub-branch) off this other (main) branch, this also looks like an even smaller tree. And so on. Sometimes there are some random variations at each step, as with this example of a tree, yet remains an example of a fractal.

$Tree as an example of a fractal we see and take for granted$

Tree as an example of a fractal we see and take for granted

Part of what that means is the versatility for breaking things down into ever and ever smaller parts – the splitting (or fracturing) mentioned above that is still a smaller representation of the bigger picture. Yet, fractal can also be seen as a way to build things up through the branching process. This can be seen with the Koch Snowflake (animated to see the process in one direction) – where you can see how both breaking down as well as building up applies.

Isn’t this what we need when we’re planning our tasks and priorities – the flexibility to approach things from any direction? Sometimes we’re stuck in the forest, unable to see the trees when we’re trying to plan. Other times all we can see are the trees – or to put it another way – we’re busy thinking in the big or small picture view and struggle with aspects that go beyond that view. Or maybe we’re just not clear – it’s somewhere between the two extremes – yet wherever we might be, it’s important to have a planning tool that will support us as we capture our thoughts. And then we can take that planning as far as we need to for maximizing our productivity and minimizing our stress – fractal like in either breaking the steps down or building our plans up.

$Von Koch Curve showing the fractal nature$

Von Koch Curve showing the fractal nature

Essentially the idea of fractal planning comes down to the idea that being aware of the fractal nature – of our plans, our goals, our entire lives – will help us as we’ll work better, becoming more efficient and effective while our stress will decrease. As Jim Stone says, “”If you set it up right, with a planning tool that allows you to break down projects to any level of detail, your plans will just grow naturally from your brain‘s innate desire to break tasks down as you go. That‘s what fractal awareness does for you. It helps you see that your whole life can be represented in the same plan, and you can trust it to grow organically, just like a tree grows (because that‘s how plans grow, too). And don‘t worry. There is no ―right way to break down your life plan or your projects and sub-projects.”

I love the optimism of this – while the skeptic in me wonders how realistic this is for everyone. Oops, even I can slip into the temptation of 1 solution for all of us. This is simply an example of one person’s solution to planning and productivity challenges that were not solved from another system out there (David Allen’s Getting Things Done are evident in places). His approach also assumes you are 1) comfortable with technology and 2) that you sit at a desk the majority of the time – where it’s easy and convenient to be interacting with your list. [Please note that I have no data on his paid online system – and am considering writing another piece that discusses some of the issues I see with this system; this post is about the ideas in his e-book.] Nevertheless, the idea of fractal awareness shifting how we view things intrigues me – without needing to adopt any other piece of his system. Are there any ideas that capture your interest?

Time Map

Wouldn’t you like more time? I’m not sure there are many people who would turn down the offer of more time. Do you have a list of things – even if it’s just in your head – for the things you want to do in your spare time? “Spare” time usually only appears when some other obligation falls through unless we designate the time and priority for it. Are your bigger life goals floundering where you can’t seem to move them forward?

This is where a time map comes in – it is a visual depiction of how and where you want to spend your time, and hence your energy. We all have various roles we fill in our life – work, relationship, self, family, and so on. Hopefully these reflect our priorities and goals – although maybe not in the time they each get.

In my post More Scheduling Options, I shared:

This is what Julie Morgenstern’s refers to as a “budget of your day, week or month that balances your time between the various departments of your life.” I think about it as a chunking of what we need to do and how it relates to our schedule – a combination of the roles we fill and the ways we can shape our schedules to fit our life and style. It’s a visual guideline for how we want to use our time; usually done in broad strokes (though you design it as you want or need) and from here you can see where to add any additional appointments or tasks. Here are some sample time maps to see various ways you can design your own: Time Map Sample Booklet.

A time map is a tool that some people recommend to bring order to your days – where it relates to your calendar yet isn’t really about those specific appointments. It is all about you – this isn’t a cookie-cutter solution or tool – you consider and then design it according to your life and needs.

It’s often designed as a week view where the columns are the days of the week and rows are time slots. Considering your priorities and goals, you put those into blocks of time in your time map. This isn’t about scheduling every minute or every hour; it is about grouping things together in way that helps simplify and streamline things in order for you to focus on all those things that matter to you. Here’s part of a blank time map template I made:

Time Map template

You begin with all the concrete pieces – those various things you do consistently from day to day or week to week, i.e. your work schedule, bedtime and wake-up time, meals if they’re regularly at x time, date night, and so on. What are the things you need as well as want to spend your time on? Pick a day, a time slot, and put it in.

By creating your own time map, you are providing a structure to your time and schedule. This structure is to support you – not constrict or hamper – where you set aside time for all those things that take time and energy, and making sure that your priorities have time allocated for them as well. It can offer you clear boundaries – “nope, I can’t meet with you that day, but I do have time here and here” – so you protect your valuable time. It is there to remind you of the priorities and values you identified and the time you blocked out to focus on those.

If something comes up unexpectedly, you can see what you might be sacrificing and then, if you want to switch things rather than give up your time on something you value. Some people say that having their personal time map makes shifting things much easier; it requires less processing since it’s all laid out in broad strokes.

Since your time map is unique to you, it will likely take time figure out all the details. Do you already know clearly how you’re using your time? Or how you want to be using your time? Are you maximizing your priorities with your energy level? Did you leave in enough time for transitions, bathroom breaks, and other parts of life we don’t always think about? Do you want to run errands all together (theoretically most efficient) or after certain appointments? How are your time estimates for accuracy – do you tend to under- or over- estimate how long things take you?

We all have the same amount of time – 168 hours a week before factoring in sleep. And Julie Morgenstern says that on average the time map should work about 80% of the time (and 100% is unrealistic). The point of a time map is that it can put you in control of your own schedule – you still have all those things you need to get done for work, home, and family – and you decide how and where to fit those pieces into your schedule. And you can adjust it as needed – this is about providing you with the outline of how you want to spend your time and in a way that makes sense for you – whether that’s more or less detailed. It boils down to setting aside your time for the things that you’ve identified as important – and hence feeling successful and in control of your time.

More Scheduling Options

With the challenge of there being so many possible solutions for each of our struggles, the prospect of finding our own approach can be daunting. It all to easy to want to find an expert that will tell us what to do – break all the pieces down so we can follow it and poof, our problems will vanish. Even when our experience shows how unlikely this is, we can still get caught up in wanting an easy answer. Instead, when you know some basic ideas and approaches, you can pick and choose the parts that work for you and move forward. It is definitely a process – it’s likely to take time – and here are some ideas to help you find your own solution.

Make a Time Map-

This is what Julie Morgenstern’s refers to as a “budget of your day, week or month that balances your time between the various departments of your life.” I think about it as a chunking of what we need to do and how it relates to our schedule – a combination of the roles we fill and the ways we can shape our schedules to fit our life and style. It’s a visual guideline for how we want to use our time; usually done in broad strokes (though you design it as you want or need) and from here you can see where to add any additional appointments or tasks. Here are some sample time maps to see various ways you can design your own: Time Map Sample Booklet.

Since my schedule varies extensively, creating and using a time map is more challenging. Instead I’ve considered how much time I’d like to spend on the various roles of my life each week – then I can add them in as my schedule allows. The schedules we each have can vary so dramatically – this is where the strength of the time map can shine – you create it for your schedule, both the obligations of your life as well as your personal style. This deserves more attention; so keep your eyes open for a future post on just time maps.

Get Curious-

Look for patterns in how you schedule and how you react to your schedule. For instance, when you have an appointment, you find yourself energized or drained after it? It won’t be that simple though, but it can begin to reveal your own style. Do you repeatedly schedule things around other appointments? Do you honor those scheduled tasks? One of the key features of being curious is that you continue the curiosity – things change and evolve all the time. Therefore, even if you think you’ve identified an important piece for yourself and schedule, work with that until it changes and then curiosity is still there to use again.

Experiment with the Variables-

Since there isn’t one right way of doing things, use that curiosity to test different options. One easy thing to test out can be when you run errands – do you do it at the end of a workday or when you have a day off? Or do you do a bit of both? Whatever your approach is, consider changing things for a little while – test how the changes impact your schedule, time, and energy. I’ve discovered that I function better with 1 day a week that has no appointments – even if that means I need to make a couple days longer to run errands. I also use David Allen’s Getting Things Done 2-minute rule in a different way – where I will decide on an amount of time, say 15, 30, 45 minutes and then work on all the 2-minute tasks I can find during that time.

Brainstorm: What will help you to be more mindful of your schedule?-

Between my curiosity and experimenting I figured out how many working hours were realistic. Yet, that didn’t solve how I’d sometimes over-schedule myself. Considering my calendar schedule – I work with the iPad calendar and the week view – I decided to create an “appointment” with the work hours scheduled for that week. This hasn’t eliminated my over-scheduling, though it’s helped tremendously and nothing is perfect. You know your schedule and your challenges, what can help you? The possibilities might not occur to you right way – sometimes they need to marinate. Once you have an idea, try it and see what happens. Each idea you try is a success regardless of whether it is a solution for you – at least if you give it a good trial.

I wish for all of us that an easy solution existed. Once we find the pieces that work, it can seem easy. It’s the process of discovering our own answers that can challenge us. I’m here to tell you it can be done – have hope. Not long ago I wrote 3 Common Scheduling Recommendations, which talks about probably the most common advice from time management experts. It’s a journey – our path to figuring out how to make things work best for ourselves. Good Luck and if you have any questions – you know how to reach me.

3 Common Scheduling Recommendations

What comes to mind for what ‘schedule’ means to you? There are times that I think of my calendar specifically – those appointments that are concrete and involve other people. Other times it’s broader than just my calendar – where it’s all the various pieces on my agenda. And let’s be honest, we all have an agenda – whether or not we write it down or make consistent progress. When we struggle with our schedules it’s setting us up for crazy-making – we feel guilty, lazy, and head towards being overwhelmed. And no matter what any expert might claim, what will help you is something for you to discover, so let’s consider some approaches that you can experiment with to find out what will help you.

Put Tasks Into Your Calendar-

Most time management experts say that we need to put tasks into our calendar – you choose a block of time and add it directly, making it into a concrete appointment, with you. If you’ve never tried doing this, I would suggest you test it out and see if it helps you. This seems to be one of the most popular and common recommendations – sometimes even part of the foundation of time management approaches. It’s also a prime example of something that works for some people and falls flat with others. Although I play with this from time to time, it’s something that fails to benefit me. Maybe my inner child rebels against that much structure or I’m aware of how negotiable those tasks really are – yet more often than not, any tasks in my calendar end up getting done in other time slot or avoided. The one exception can be errands – where I choose the errands based on time and location, so it’s really the most convenient to do it then.

Identify Your Roles-

This is another popular piece of the foundation for managing your time – identify your values and the life roles you fill. Another way to think about these is what are your big picture goals for your life – those important things that you want to spend time on. I’ll even go a step further and tell you to make sure one of those things on your list needs to be: personal/self-care or some other name that means you’re making yourself a priority in order to have the energy for the other things. If we identify “relationships/family/friendship” as a role we value, we can then make room in our schedule for attending to that. I talk about this in Tasks – Big Picture View, and share my own list of 5 roles. The list of your roles will work more effectively if it’s short (again time is limited) and then you make effort to include fulfilling aspects of it in your schedule. You can use these roles in other experiments – both to help you include them in your schedule and to see if you are living your values the way you’d like to be.

Include Time Estimates with Each Task-

Many experts talk about writing the amount of time you think a task will take right after the item – regardless of what the task is or how time consuming. As I talked about in Take Control of Your Schedule, we all only have so much time to work with and it only helps us if we can avoid over-scheduling ourselves. I’ve talked before about how our perceptions of time can be distorted – in either direction – so writing down your estimate about how long each task will take you helps you to be mindful about what you’re trying to accomplish and whether it’s a task for another day or time. Also by having the time estimate there, you might realize how you need to adjust the allotted time for certain tasks, more or less time – helping you control your schedule in the future. Although I do not write time estimates each week on my to-do list, I use this as needed – whether to remind myself that this or that task will take more time or to clearly show that just because most tasks are “small” the time still adds up. I’ve also noticed that when I am feeling overwhelmed that including the time estimates on my to-do list helps lessen my anxiety and stress, which translates to making the most of my time in smart ways. Of course, if you use a digital calendar and put your tasks directly into your calendar, you are blocking the time – the estimate of the time that task will take you. Even if you don’t physically record your tasks, you can consider the time required when you’re thinking about what’s on your agenda.

These 3 approaches to handling your schedule more effectively are probably the most well known, although I’ve got several more on my list of options for scheduling experiments for another time. None of these are the end-all be-all that will solve any schedule challenges. They can all be used together or not – although knowing these approaches, even if you don’t actively use any of them, can be important as you work with your schedule. If you haven’t tried any of these, test them out for yourself and your life. Do they add any benefit for your schedule? Is there a particular time or context that they could help you? Remember, it’s all about finding ways to help make your life easier.

Take Control of Your Schedule

Schedules provide the framework for our days, weeks, and months. These schedules outline our obligations and then around these other appointments, we see the time remaining for accomplishing other things. What the schedule looks like for each of us can vary dramatically – if we’re working, are the hours consistent or varied? How many appointments do we have for this day/week/month? Theoretically when we commit to other people to be somewhere and do something, we want to follow through – so all these obligations affect the time we have available for everything else. And simply having a schedule does not magically mean your time is maximized.

First, I’d encourage you to recognize that you have a schedule – whether you’re working or not, whether you keep a record of it anywhere or not, whether you’re on summer break or not, etcetera – some people discount their having the schedule/framework based on their situation. Do you know anyone whose schedule doesn’t have some appointments on it? I can’t think of a single person. Even the most relaxed retired people still have commitments and appointments. Therefore, we all have that framework around which we manage other tasks and priorities. Also, think about how you like to focus on your schedule – is it per day, per week, or per month? It’s important to have a sense of what the upcoming days, weeks, and months bring, yet we tend to focus most on one of them – for me it’s weekly.

Second, consider whether your schedule reflects your priorities. Some people thrive on having a schedule that is full of all their passions while others become overwhelmed to have “too many” things on their docket. This is why it’s about exploring whether your priorities and schedule get along. Are you saying “yes” to too many voluntary appointments? Are you filling your schedule so full that there’s not enough time for quality time with family or personal rejuvenation? Quite often there are appointments that aren’t negotiable – we need to work or other things. Yet what else is making it onto your schedule – are you being conscious and deliberate about what you agree to?

Third, remember that time is limited. On one level we all know this and you might think I’m silly to make a point about this. Yet it’s all too easy to discount the time required for our appointments (and the potential for delays with them) and forget to consider the time for the “basics” of eating and bathing. It’s not that these later items need a place on our schedules or to-do lists, rather when we look that the schedule of what we’re doing today, we might not factor these into it. There are 168 hours each week and if we get 8 hours of sleep each night that brings the total down to 112 hours a week. How many hours are accounted for within your schedule (including the drive time)? The amount of time remaining is the starting point for what else you will have time for – as well as what you simply won’t have time for this week (or day or month).

Finally, get curious and experiment, experiment, and experiment some more. If you find yourself dissatisfied with how your schedule and tasks are functioning for your life, consider approaching it differently. Or even if you’re satisfied, there might be a way to improve things. There are so many opinions and options for managing your schedule and time – and this is an important place to begin in order to maximize your life. I’ll talk about some ideas soon. Remember our schedule is the framework for making space for our priorities – and it is up to each of us to define what that means and looks like for us as an individual.

I appreciate the structure that schedules provide – the clear guidelines of my commitments. The framework of the schedule delineates what other tasks may or may not be possible. Our schedules need to be reflections of our high priorities – whether that is simply working to earn money – at least a reflection of some of our high priorities. That doesn’t mean we don’t have other equally (or greater) high priorities. Our schedules are the framework for navigating within as we identify and make time for our other things we value and need. Honor thy schedule and use it to identify the time you have for everything else.

To-Do’s – Technology and Traditional

My adamant approach to all things we do – whether organizing, managing time, cleaning, or working on our goals – is to find our own, individual way. There is no one right way to do anything. Take what works from each approach and combine it into something that works for you, even using any of your own unique ideas no one’s ever mentioned. And no matter how good or logical something sounds – follow your own needs. Additionally change or adapt it when it makes sense. When it comes to to-do lists, it can be completely personalized, where only you matter.

Recently I talked about my to-do program on my iPad – Appigo’s Todo. Yet, as much as I use it and wouldn’t give it up, it’s only part of how I handle my to-dos. I do rely on it and is the place where I try to capture all the tasks I need to do – eventually. This is often called a “brain dump” where you get all your tasks – regardless of priority, relevance, timeline, limitations, and etcetera – out of your head. It’s not important how you capture them outside your head as long as they’re saved somewhere besides your brain. This is one of the important aspects my technology to-do list serves for me.

This complete collection of all your to-dos can be utterly overwhelming. I’ll confess that quite often looking at my whole to-do list can paralyze me. It’s not that I don’t recognize what needs to be done or that many items are for the future – it’s just that there’s so many – ugh. A pro for a digital collection of your tasks is that it stays neat and never requires you to rewrite it since you can move, rearrange, and modify any and all tasks easily. I’m pretty confident that I am saving significant time simply by not rewriting and reorganizing my lists!

For exactly this reason as well as some other reasons, I sit down once a week with this master to-do list, my calendar, and my ARC notebook. I review most of the tasks on my list considering the time and energy I’ll likely have to dedicate to working on these items. Then I date the page in my ARC notebook, “June 3-9, 2013” and proceed to list typically 7-14 tasks, the goals of what I want to accomplish during that week. The process of writing them down serves me in a couple of way – it forces me to be mindful of how many tasks I’ve set out to do since I find that just a digital list can too easily grow unrealistically. Also, writing them down seems to help my memory of them without the list in front of me – there’s research that supports the process of writing connects our brains with it more than just reading it.

A couple of notes:

– generally I recommend not setting more than 3 goals/tasks per day as a common struggle is to overestimate how much we can do which can then lead us to feeling unsuccessful and more overwhelmed though of course varies according to your own life

– some people find it helpful to add their tasks directly into their calendar which is great if it works (my inner child rebels against that vehemently! lol)

Even with this process, it doesn’t mean that I don’t look at my master to-do list during the week. First, my master list has regular daily or weekly tasks that aren’t included on my weekly handwritten to-dos. Second, as much as we might try to plan our weeks (or days) things can arise that require we adapt or change our focus.

This is when I find the digital to-do list additionally helpful. Most (maybe all?) digital to-do programs come with multiple features for organizing your to-dos. How you set those up and how you use them is quite personal. I’ve designated areas or “roles” of my life (which I talked some about in, Tasks – Big Picture View): Routines (this is new for me), Business, Household, Health, Personal, Volunteering. Ideally I spend some time each week in each of these areas and if I need to shift my goals for the week, I can consider if I want to focus on a particular area and use the program to only look at those tasks. I have some tasks set with an alarm, which helps make sure they’re dealt with.

Another way the digital to-do list helps me is that I set up contexts (only 1 per task) and tags (no limit per task), both of which I can sort with and see only those tasks that relate to what I’ve specified. There are times when I put off certain types of tasks and then find myself motivated to tackle them. Let me give you an example – what I consider “technical” phone calls are disturbingly problematic, those phone calls where

there’s a strong probability that it will either be phone tag and I’d ideally be around to limit the phone tag or
require being on hold indefinitely

Chances are that only those types of phone calls are even on my master to-do list and by setting the context as “@Phone calls” I can pull all them up regardless of what category they fit into and burn through them when I have the time and feel up to it. Similarly one way I use tags is for identifying types of tasks that match my current capabilities – my physical and mental state like I talked about in Your Tasks have Needs.

I’ve combined my to-do list into using both technology and more traditional methods. Some might find my way to be slightly redundant. Yet it’s my way, not anyone else’s – it’s been changed and modified over the years according to what does and doesn’t work as well as working through how to make it more successful. I doubt I will ever be done tweaking it – like the written list that sometimes has a specific day written by the tasks and sometimes time estimates while most of the time it’s just the task. It’s most important that you find ways that work for you – a system for handling your tasks that supports you in making progress through them – whatever that ends up looking like for you.

Your Tasks have Needs

Endless to-do lists exist everywhere. Even when you get caught up on your current tasks, more to-dos are bound to come your way. There’s no escaping them, whether you write them down or keep them in your head. Living our life, there is always more to do. Finding a way to organize your to-do list can be just as individual as anything else – discovering how to make it work for you is most important. Part of making things work for you is to make the most of your current state.

It’s not uncommon that some of us are most successful with completing certain types of tasks. What do those tasks have in common? What makes them easier to handle? What’s similar between tasks you tend to avoid? What leads you to feeling successful with your to-do list? What’s the biggest challenge with your list?

Our current state can have a dramatic impact on how we move through or avoid our tasks. Too often we wait until our feelings to lead us to our to-do list, “Now I feel ready to work on my list.” Yet what happens when you are always too tired, too sick, too overwhelmed?

I challenge you to consider your tasks in a different way – match the tasks with what you are capable of right now. Although there any number of ways to break tasks into categories, for this particular approach consider these two factors – the physical and mental requirements – for each task on your list.

It’s more likely that you get the physical tasks accomplished when you feel like you have enough energy to tackle it. Yet, when you are struggling with consistent fatigue or pain issues, those active tasks might be put off. This makes sense. Although if you begin to consider your tasks according to how physical they are, you can also begin to figure out how to make the most of your energy when it’s available – you’ll know which tasks to make a priority.

Likewise when you have little to no energy, you probably have tasks that are less physically strenuous. If you’ve identified which tasks those are, you can tackle those. And be sure to consider if there are ways to make some tasks less physically demanding – like the drawer you can pull out completely and put it next to you on the couch.

The second category can be just as important as the physical requirements per task. Our mental state and completing tasks has the potential to backfire – think about organizing something when you are practically brain-dead with exhaustion (which hopefully you wouldn’t do anyway). There are tasks that we can complete almost automatically – you don’t need to be completely focused to get your dishes done. Other tasks need more attention – we have to think and make decisions.

Both of these 2 categories are both really a spectrum – it’s generally not as simple as sedentary versus active – it’s a scale where you move between the two extremes. I generally think of tasks as falling on one side or the other though – for simplicities sake. I apply the same rules to the mental category too – complex versus simple (often thinking of them as intellectual vs. mindless). Yet, even by putting tasks into these extremes brings awareness about what each task will need of my attention whether they easily fit into those extremes. Then you also can alternate among the different categories to maintain or even increase your progress through your to-do list.

Therefore if you can match up the tasks on your list to your current state, mentally and physically, you can probably get a lot more crossed off your list. By pairing up your tasks with your current abilities, you will also prevent the need for a long recovery – physically or emotionally – from accidentally overextending yourself. Considering your to-do list with these factors in mind offers you the opportunity to make the most of your time and energy to get things accomplished in a sensible way.

Productivity

With the never-ending to-do lists many of us face, it can be challenging to balance productivity with reality. None of us can go, go, go and never stop – we have to stop at the very least for sleep. Yet, we need to stop for more than sleep. The challenge in this busy world is to find the pace that makes sense for you.

First, let’s talk about productivity – the definition that fits this context best is “yielding results, benefits, or profits.” If you view this definition narrowly, you might only apply it to those tasks that give you hard, clear results – things that you can see and measure immediately.

I’d imagine that many of you view time with family valuable. Would you consider it “productive”? I would, as there are many benefits and even results. It’s hard to measure. You can’t really know what would be if you didn’t spend your time with family – for you or for them.

One of the ways I think about the idea of productivity is whether I’m making the most of my time. This shifts the idea from trying to accomplish tons of things to being effective and working on those things that are important. In this case, the word important refers to the big picture view – those values and needs that provide meaning and purpose to our life.

The amount of time – “free” time – we all have varies – from person to person and depending on various circumstances – activities, obligations, support and assistance, health, family, etc. If your “free” time is minimal, it’s all that more important to maximize that time. The idea of “free” time seems an oxymoron to me – as who has free time or at least feels like they have free time?

Something that you need to consider is what is reasonable for you personally. The amount of what we can each accomplish in a given day – the degree of productivity – will vary from person to person. What factors are you dealing with that could limit your productivity? How can you maximize your effectiveness?

Inc. Magazine had a blurb about the 3 secrets of most productive people a while back – these illustrate that productivity is about more than accomplishing things.

they take breaks
they are great collaborators
they have lives outside work

All three of these focus on the benefits of stepping away from being in the midst of “working” or being productive in the strict definition. There’s an additional comment about having lives outside of work also reveals these highly productive people have interests that don’t relate to their work.

True productivity can be as much about following your passions that give your life meaning as it is about completing your to-do list and earning money. What your success at being productive will look like is something you need to figure out. I can tell you that it will not mean working on your to-do list every waking moment. And it might mean reevaluating what being productive means to you – considering those activities you engage in that don’t provide those measurable results. I encourage you to discover your own version of what productivity means for you personally.

Checking Tasks Off Your To-Do List

One of the questions I ask people when we’re talking about to-do lists is “do you write in tasks so that you can check them off?” There are a fair number of people who admit with some embarrassment that yes, in fact they do that. And I smile and say, “yup I’ve been known to do that too.” I want those check marks – that symbol of having used my day productively. Yet, it’s simply one-way to have the validation that the day was productive.

We all want to feel like we are accomplishing things – both those that are necessary and those that help us feel like we are moving forward. The way that we feel about our to-do lists can vary. It also varies over time – there are times I love my to-do list and times when it simply fills me with dread. As with everything, there are many variables that affect our behaviors and feelings.

My biggest struggle is to feel productive – how many tasks are reasonable to accomplish? There’s this nagging feeling like I could have done more, “if only…” With all the variables of life, what is realistic for a person to do in a given day?

I’ve looked into this, from extensive reading to polling my friends and family. The answers vary dramatically as well as the response that it’s hard to quantify – “it depends.” There was a flaw in my polling – often we each view our tasks differently. Does doing the dishes count as a to-do? Does taking a shower? You can see how defining a reasonable number of to-dos can be challenging.

Tasks take a different amount of time to complete. In a to-do list each item takes a line and can appear equal, even when they’re not. Ideally everything on your active to-do list needs to be able to be completed in one step. This means that projects are kept somewhat separate – like the brain dump to-do list, and only the next step goes onto the smaller daily or weekly to-do list (see my discussion of this in: Decide on the Next Action).

When it feels like I’ve been struggling with accomplishing my tasks, often I will write an estimate of the time I think each task will take. This allows me to see how much I have set to do and gives me the chance to move things to another week (I currently make weekly to-do lists from the brain dump list). Sometimes I will even take a list of tasks completed and note the time spent on each – this provides me with a realistic view of what I accomplished.

Too often I see people discounting the things they did do, as they view those things as minor or mandatory. Nevertheless, everything we do takes time and energy – it counts. During the times when I wasn’t really keeping a to-do list, at the end of the day I would sometimes write down everything I had done that day – another way for me to see what was accomplished.

Unfortunately there is no easy answer about how much you can realistically accomplish on a given day. One thing to consider is how long the things on your to-do list will take – do you have time on this or that day? Based on Harold Taylor’s planner, I recommend limiting your daily to-do list to no more than 3 tasks, above and beyond all those things you do each day anyway. Those 3 tasks can be whatever you choose and of any length as long as they are able to be completed within a reasonable amount of time. Test this and see how it works – when does it work for you and when does it break down?