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.

Technology – Digital Pictures

Technology is here to benefit us. At least it’s supposed to and we can do our best to not let it take over. This can be challenging – as I’ve talked about many times before. Recently it occurred to me that taking pictures with our phones, tablets, and digital cameras is a good example of technology here to support us. It’s also an illustration of how when we’re not careful, we forget to only use it to our advantage. It’s important for us to use this wonderful technology of digital pictures to supplement our memories.

Pictures can be one of those things we all have a lot of – and often it’s not as organized as we’d like. As you’ve probably heard me say before, one of the factors of getting organized is the quantity you have to deal with – and with digital pictures that quantity can quickly become overwhelming. And then when you consider you probably have both physical and digital pictures to organize – it can be paralyzing to consider organizing them – and the organization aspects are topics for other blogs.

This technology of being able to take pictures digitally has many benefits for us. There is no cost for taking the pictures – we don’t need film, let alone rolls and rolls of it on hand, just in case. We don’t actually have to spend money getting our pictures developed, although we might choose to have some printed up and those will be ones we know are good and worth the time, money, and effort of getting the physical copies. We have the immediate visual feedback about whether an image was captured – did someone blink at the exact wrong moment – and give us the chance to try again (and again and again). Then there’s the possibility of catching each and every adorable expression of your grand-kids.

On the other hand, this same technology also makes it easy to take the pictures and avoid doing else with them. It might even be a case that you might not really even look at them after taking them – the excitement of picking the developed film up to discover what was captured doesn’t apply with digital photographs. And then the options for organizing them can be quite a bit more overwhelming and procrastination becomes easier – they’re saved and you can always do it later. Just because these digital pictures don’t take up our physical spaces doesn’t mean they’re not consuming space and that space carry its own risks also beyond fire and water.

The most important thing is that there’s a difference between living the experiences and capturing it all to relive later. When you have the camera (or photo capturing device) out taking pictures, you are only partially attending to what’s going on around you and missing the experience of being fully present. Your memories are more likely to be of taking the pictures, not of the event itself. This isn’t to say that taking pictures should be eliminated – rather that when we’re not careful it’s easy to get caught up in trying to capture the experience rather than relishing each experience and getting some pictures to highlight that.

As a client and I recently talked about, would you rather watch the beautiful sunset and savor it or try to capture the beauty of the sunset in a picture to remind yourself in the future? This is definitely something I struggle with – oscillating between the extremes of regretting what I didn’t capture since I didn’t even pull out the camera to the other end of realizing that I’ve taken 350 pictures in the last 2 hours.

Let’s be honest – who wants to look at 500 pictures of your daughter’s birthday party or your vacation to the Everglades? Will you even want to look at that many pictures in a year, 5 years, or 25 years? And I’m a bit tongue in cheek since I’m probably one of those who would enjoy looking through that many pictures. Yet, even though I do like looking through tons of pictures, I can also share that I avoid looking at pictures – physical as well as digital – since it will take time to look at them all. This means that they’re not being appreciated and cannot remind you of your lovely experiences – it has ceased to benefit you. Imagine what it would be like to have a manageable number of pictures that do their simple purpose of reminding you of this and that experience – is it difficult to picture that?

There’s a balance between being fully present in the moment and capturing some images for the joy of reminiscing in the future – and what that balance looks like for you is not likely to match what it looks like for me. What matters is becoming aware of our tendencies – do you want to savor the moments more as they happen? Taking pictures is technology – whether we’ve thought about it in that way or not – and just like in all other arenas, the goal and purpose is to support you and your values. Don’t be lulled by the possibilities – make technology work for you.

Misplacing Things?

It happens to all of us – we forget where something is or can’t find that thing we need. I’m currently even in the middle of one of those times – one of our magazines has a place, I’m sure of it – yet I cannot seem to locate where they are. It bugs me! And granted I can be a bit of a perfectionist; it’s more than that though, it’s unsettling to know you have something yet cannot get your hands on it. Although on some level losing things is inevitable, it’s worthwhile to work at minimizing that. Therefore let’s look at some of the causes of losing things as well as steps to take in order to limit how much we misplace.

We don’t put things away when we’re done with them.
- Put things back into their home when you are done with them. How’s that for an obvious solution? Yet, the better we can get about this, the easier our lives can be.
- This can happen for any number of reasons and sometimes it can even make sense at times. There are steps for dealing with things we aren’t ready to put away so they won’t get misplaced in the process. First, is there a place nearby the home that keeps the item more accessible? For instance you have an item you pulled out of the bathroom medicine cabinet/drawer/cabinet and want to leave on the counter – it might be the reminder of seeing it or making it easier to access. I have a counter of sorts for in process stuff – everything goes there, waiting to be used and then returned to its home.
- Also, keep things moving toward their home – I know I don’t always want to run upstairs/downstairs to just put something away – yet I have containers for items that need to go in that direction, so the next time I’m moving that way, I take it along and take the few moments when I get there to put the things away.
- Does something else need to change? We had a chronic problem with scissors in our home – they kept disappearing. When we talked about it, we realized that we really wanted more around – it was too inconvenient and not easy enough – and once we got a couple of more pairs, they each go back to their homes after they’ve been used.

We put like things in different places – whether that’s forgetting where we’d put that x thing before, or wanting those x things in multiple areas for ease of use, or changing our minds about where to keep x and not moving the earlier place into the new place.
- Put x in only one place and do it every time.
- Early on in getting things organized, focus only on choosing a place and putting the things in that place. That’s the most important consideration initially and later you can think about other considerations.
- Also, if you’re early in the organizing process, remember to think in broad categories first – so all “office” supplies get put in one place, or like I talked about recently with papers in Paper Pyramid, all papers to be filed in one place. You can refine these once you’re further along, though those things will likely be close together at that later point too.
- There can be times when having more than one place for x thing: cleaning supplies in each bathroom, items you want on each floor of your home, products that are currently open and being used like Ziploc bags, toilet paper, garbage bags, etc. are examples that might have two locations – those that are in use and those that you pull from when needed. As with almost everything, it’s not completely an absolute – unless you can make it so.

Here I’ve only covered two of the reasons we can misplace things among the many possibilities that exist. I’ll discuss more in the coming months. And you will probably begin to see how much overlap there can be among the culprits that lead to our misplacing things. With these two examples – we might not put things away when we’re done with them because that item could go in more than one place – so it’s easier to simply not put it “away.” It can help to examine which is your primary struggle with misplacing things and then try different strategies to limit or even eliminate these tendencies.

Herding Papers into the Filing Cabinet

I have a vision of trying to herd cats – with them flying in all directions! I’ve only met a few people who actually enjoy filing, and the rest of us try to manage it. This can be especially challenging if you have put off handling your papers once you’ve finished the action they needed – as well as if your filing system is over-full from lack of purging. When you are facing this situation you have a decision to make about what your first step will be – do you begin with thinning your filing system or by corralling all those loose papers?

First some questions: (familiar from my “Paper Pyramid”)

Do you currently have a system for your papers?
Is there room within your system for adding papers? (i.e. is your filing cabinet or whatever stuffed full or not)
Are you happy (relatively speaking) with your current system?
How many papers are waiting to be added to your system?

If you can answer yes to the first 3 questions, then your progress can move forward more easily – how much so will depend on your answer to the final question. (If you answered no, check out the link above to Paper Pyramid.)

The most satisfying first step regardless of your answers is typically to get all those loose papers together. Toss all those that you don’t need or want to keep – as long as it’s obvious quickly; otherwise wait to decide until you get farther along. There will be more opportunity for purging in the process.

Just like if your answers from above were no, the foremost consideration as you look at each piece of paper is whether you will need this in the short-term or not. Depending on the amount of papers, this might be all the distinction you need – 2 piles of papers: needs action and to file. It’s critical that you keep all papers that need your attention separate and together through this process – until they can be tossed or moved into a pile for organizing/filing.

Hopefully if you answered yes, you’ve already made the decisions about how long to keep papers that are exempt from governmental guidelines. If not, there’s still hope – you just need to think about and decide for yourself how far back you need to keep certain records. There are many opinions out there about how long to keep your papers (besides property and tax related) – which I talk about some in Paper Retention. Remember at this stage it’s fine to add all papers to their pile, the decisions can be delayed for the time being.

Depending on your answer to the last question, “How many papers are waiting to be added to your system?” the next probably step is to subdivide. For instance, get all your financial papers together, all the instruction manuals, everything that can fit into a category – make sure the pile of papers is relatively small so that the filing process can move along smoothly.

Since you answered yes to the first three questions, consider another question:

When was the last time you purged papers from your files, even if they are not overflowing?

If you don’t know or it’s been more than a year – as much as you might not want to hear it, this is the ideal time to organize your files. This is not about emptying the file drawer and surrounding yourself with piles of papers.

It is about taking the best opportunity to make sure only papers you need and want are taking up the valuable space in your system. Therefore, you have a pile of financial papers ready and waiting to go into their file. Pull out the file – completely out of the filing cabinet. Look through it, this doesn’t need to take much time once you’ve decided how long you’re keeping each type of paper – and remove all those papers that are older or no longer relevant. Then add the sorted papers you’ve gathered from around your house into their appropriate file. Continue with each file.

One of the things I’ve done to streamline the purging of older papers is to place a single tabbed divider between each year in every file. This means that at the beginning of the next year I pull out all papers in front of the first divider and shred them, and move the tabbed divider to the back of the file and add all current papers behind it. This makes regular purging a simple process that requires virtually no thought.

Remember that one of the things that can break a filing system down is having too many papers in one file. There’s a fine balance between too few and too many papers in one file. And to state the obvious, if we don’t purge the papers from our files, they will overflow – or more likely we’ll stop doing the filing to avoid dealing with that cramped file. Any way that you can make purging papers an easy part of the process will save you time, energy, and most importantly – your sanity throughout your life. Your files will no longer threaten to explode and any resistance to getting those papers into the filing cabinet will come more from just the dislike of the filing process than actual problems.

Getting papers from around the house into the filing cabinet should not at all be like herding cats. Ideally it’s not a chore, it’s something that can happen fairly easily. Although I admit, filing remains a chore for me. It’s still not like herding cats – I have an inbox designated for papers that need filing in a discrete place that also has limited room for growth – the paper corral. If my papers have moved past any necessary action, they go directly to the “inbox,” and this is where they stay until I manage to get them into the filing system. This means my papers are in one of three locations only: action needed, the “inbox,” or in the correct file. It’s only the last step that I can still struggle with – yet it’s completely organized as it is. It’s all about finding what works for you – so herd those papers into the filing cabinet and regain control of your space.

Are You Ready?

“Ready for what” you might ask? At any given time you could be prepared for various things – the need to adjust or even make abrupt changes – those things that life inevitably demands. While there are times that any change, even minor adjustments, can be overwhelming. This is part of life – whether we like or accept it. A valuable skill to develop is to learn to recognize what we can and cannot handle – at least at certain points in time, since this too shifts with different variables.

Therefore for this moment – are you ready to work at getting organized? And it most definitely can be work. When we let things slide or we never learned the skills to develop and maintain an organized environment, it takes time and effort to bring your spaces into order. As FlyLady says, the state of your home didn’t happen overnight and it can’t be fixed overnight – whatever the actual state of things in your own spaces.

And to be blunt, just because you are frustrated and overwhelmed doesn’t automatically mean that you are “ready.” And equally, it doesn’t mean that you’re not “ready.” There are “Stages of Change” or “Stages of Readiness” people have identified that we all move through and among – along our individual paths. These apply to any changes we want or need to make in our life – from getting organized to any other changes we want to implement.

Pre-contemplation/ Initial Rumblings
Contemplation/ Identifying Possibilities
Preparation/ Reaching Out
Action/ Beyond Talking
Maintenance/ Life Jolts (increase in commitment)

– first items are taken from “A ‘Stages of Change’ Approach to Helping Patients Change Behavior”; second items taken from ICD’s fact sheet, “Readiness for Change – Revised” (pdf link FS-010, second from the bottom of page)

Remember I also said we move among these stages – the idea of relapse – where we falter in making the progress we want, is moving to an earlier stage in the process. It’s completely normal and simply means you’ve encountered some additional challenges and can move back toward the progress you want – when you are ready.

Being “ready” isn’t a solitary, concrete event. It is moving through the process at your own pace, influenced by your life and experiences. It’s all about you and where you are at within these stages. Making changes is challenging – even when we desperately want to make them – hence that it is “work.” Also it is rarely a straight line – making consistent, steady progress from the moment you begin to developing the skills in maintaining the change you’ve identified. If you think about any change you have made and even those you set out to change – what was that process like for you? Likely, it was challenging – it took time and effort – especially initially. It quite probably required learning new skills, or how to apply other skills in new ways.

One of the best things you can do for yourself – as you embark on making changes, even with getting organized – is to give yourself permission to be exactly where you are in the process. You will likely not be right where you are now as time passes – moving through the stages doesn’t necessarily require that you “work” those stages, they can happen naturally. Lasting change comes from within – your own motivation or where you are within the process of making changes you’ve personally identified – and being patient with the process.

Wherever you are in the process, whatever changes you want to make – you can begin anytime. Waiting until you are solidly in an “action” stage isn’t required. Although you can also wait until you are ready for taking action. There is no one right answer – it’s about you and what will work for you. And it never hurts to find support as you embark on the process of making changes – whatever that support looks like.

These Stages of Change can provide you with a framework for how we all process. This outline also doesn’t address other complicating factors, which I’ll talk about soon. It does illustrate what is typical for all of us – it’s not as simple as flipping a switch and presto things are fixed. If only it were that easy. Hopefully it will encourage you to be gentle with yourself as you strive to make changes – whether that’s getting organized or whatever other changes you want to make. Truly it is simply part of the process – even when it’s annoying – it’s still “normal.”

What changes do you want to make? Where are you in the process? Are you taking action?

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.

My Top Free App Picks

Recently I talked about Technology Tools – To Get or Not to Get, as well as how well the iPad serves my needs. This lead me to think about what apps are virtually indispensable to me, as well as how extremely overwhelmed I can become even looking at all the possible apps.

It’s not surprising to be overwhelmed by the number of apps – since it’s reported that there are more than 1 million in iTunes. And it’s a personal peeve of mine that they don’t offer free trials – to see if the app will meet my needs before I spend money on it – even if it’s only $1.99 or some other “minor” amount. Those small purchases can add up. Yet, there are many free apps and I’ve only paid for 5 of the 100+ apps I have. I’ve been grateful for the input of friends on what is worth getting.

Therefore, without further ado, here are my top free apps and why.

1. Evernote

I’ve talked about Evernote before, in Note Taking for Virtually Everything, and need to revisit this incredible cloud program again in my blog. Since it’s a cloud program, it can be on most any device and offer you access to your account. Evernote is amazing in how it can collect all the things you want to remember and be functional. It can also serve as a place to back-up things from your iPad.

One view of Evernote

2. Dropbox

Here’s another cloud program that I talked about in my cloud computing entries, in Drop Files You Use – Here, which works with many devices to provide access to your account. It also offers the option to back-up data from your iPad into it, like photos, and can be easier than Evernote to access any pdf files.

One view of Dropbox

3. Alarmed

You probably know that I am a fan of timers – it’s a good tool to help keep you on track and to get a sense of the time things take you. I have 11 free timer apps on my iPad from my exploration of timer options. Alarmed is the one I use the most – it has both a reminder and a timer section and both allow you to create several alarms and choose from multiple alarm sounds. I use the reminders as a repeating system to remind me to relax before bed and similar things when I might lose track of time. The timer area has alarms for the washer and dryer as well as the “You can do 15 minutes” alarm when I’m struggling to get moving.

View of Alarmed timer

4. 30/30

I hope to use this one more, especially since they’ve recently resolved some issues. It’s similar to a timer app as it’s a self-proclaimed “task manager.” It offers a visual display of what’s on your list, the time remaining on the task and what’s up next. I’ve been using it to help me create new routines – many of us are familiar with how challenging it can be to get in new habits – and this gives me a framework for remembering and doing it. I also use it for times when I might have a tendency to get off track – a system for keeping me focused on one area for a period of time before moving to the next area. I really appreciate the visual aspects of this app – from choosing a color and an icon for each task as well as the ring with time elapsed moving along.

One view of 30/30

5. Dragon Dictation

This is another app that I don’t use all the time, yet when I use it, I really appreciate it. It does require an internet connection and you have a limited amount of time to speak, yet it does a pretty good job in transcribing your speech into text. From there you can send it or paste it into the app of your choice. Considering this is a $200- computer program that is free for the i-devices – it’s great!

One view of Dragon Dictation

There are more apps that I use and appreciate. These 5 free apps are the ones that help me most – with simplifying, with organization, with productivity, with supporting me in my life. Although these cannot help anyone if they sit unused on your device – you have to use it to make it helpful. Next month I’ll share the 5 apps that I did actually pay for – and 4 of them made it to my indispensable list along with these 5 I talked about today. Remember what matters most is finding and using the tools that will help you make the most out of your life.

Ready to Escape the Pain

There’s a reason I don’t sell gift certificates generally. Never mind that some people would be mortally offended to be given a gift of a professional organizer, it would be a waste of money unless the person was ready. They need to decide there’s a better way and to make the effort to change. If I only had a magic wand, this could be different, maybe. When we pause to consider that someone has to be ready to make changes otherwise nothing else will make a long-term difference, we can see how true it is. The first step is that when the pain becomes too great, we’re inspired to figure out alternatives.

My husband and I have had long interesting conversations about pain. Generally you hear how having a high pain tolerance is a good thing, “it makes you stronger.” I know I associate the idea of a high pain tolerance with resiliency; the strength to make it through whatever comes my way. And we’ve come the conclusion that for many things we have a low tolerance for pain.

Consider the person who is constantly losing their keys, phone, purse, wallet, etc. I have a friend who struggles with this and they race around in some degree of panic searching – eventually finding whatever it was and moving along with their day. And it happens again and again; and yet it seems normal to them, it’s just how it is.

Then there’s other people who’ve lost their keys or whatever, get frustrated, and decide to do things differently – they get determined. They make a decision for how to avoid it happening and begin to implement that change. It doesn’t get fixed overnight and it doesn’t mean that it never happens again. Yet, it does mean that it’s more of a rare occurrence rather than a common one.

The second example is someone with a low pain tolerance. The “pain” of losing that item is too great to simply continue in the same way – it instigates the desire for change. The frustration or annoyance is greater than the challenge of finding a new way of doing something and making that new system work. This includes failing and faltering along the way to the new system, yet determined to avoid the pain of lost keys with any frequency.

The frustration of a spouse, parent, or sibling is fairly irrelevant – the pain has to be yours if true lasting changes are going to be made. And that’s not to say that the frustration of a loved one isn’t motivating, but it can spur movement that is short-lived. Consider the example of alcoholics – the person needs to make the decision on their own to change otherwise they’ll return to drinking. The impetus for change wasn’t coming from within. The context is irrelevant, the person needs to reach the point where they want things to be different, better.

Let me be perfectly clear – we all live our lives the best we can. If you are someone who loses your keys regularly and haven’t done anything about it, that’s fine – there is no one right way. People can lead great lives while constantly losing their keys, although they might be frustrating their spouse. 🙂 That’s not the point. If YOU don’t mind losing your keys, what would motivate you to change that?

As I’ve touched on before, facing changes can be challenging, even when they’re wanted (or positive). Therefore, when the risk of doing something different is less painful than staying the same – we embark on the process of finding better ways. It might well even be a process of 2 steps forward, 1 step back – it’s a journey into unfamiliar territory. It’s also a way to learn about yourself and discover that having a low pain tolerance makes you strong.