Comments on: Mastering the ToDo List

By: Angela

Angela — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:54:48 +0000

I use a similar method–a mega (“purge”) list and a daily todo list. Works well for me.

By: Bookmarks about Todo

Bookmarks about Todo — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:30:28 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 6 members originally found by thehaas on 2008-08-09 Mastering the ToDo List http://www.productiveflourishing.com/mastering-the-todo-list/ – bookmarked by 2 members originally [...]

By: Francis Wade

Francis Wade — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:38:32 +0000

Over at my blog I have been exploring the limits of using To-Do lists.

That limit comes for many when they can no longer handle a mental schedule of what they plan to do for the day, week, or month.

In other words, they must start to reconcile the actions they have committed to with the time they have available to them in some way. What prompts them to make this transition is often some kind of life-change, such as a promotion or having a baby, when they begin to feel overwhelmed by having too much stuff.

That feeling of overwhelm comes from not having habits that allow them to use their schedule effectively.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:09:26 +0000

@ Marlito: It’s awesome that you have that type of discipline. I think a lot of people list to get it off of their mind – as opposed to avoiding procrastination – so I guess this post was trying to help people go with the flow yet bring some order to the madness. Thanks for commenting, and your design firm’s cover looks pretty nice!

By: Marlito Dungog

Marlito Dungog — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:33:55 +0000

the post is great. however for me, all of my today’s to-do list are exit tasks. i believe the reason why i list it because it needs to be done and avoid procrastination.

By: How to Write Effective ToDo Lists | Productive Flourishing

How to Write Effective ToDo Lists | Productive Flourishing — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:02:10 +0000

[...] been writing a lot recently about taming your ToDo lists. My focus has been on learning how to do less, but there’s another important way to go about taming your ToDo lists that’s as simple [...]

By: Redesigned Productivity Planners Available (For Free!) | Productive Flourishing

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:29:46 +0000

[...] been writing a bit recently about limiting what you’re trying to do each day. I integrated those discussions into the Productivity [...]

By: Charles Gilkey

Charles Gilkey — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:37:59 +0000

@ Jared: Your comment pinged as I was finishing up “Simplicity, Complexity, and Productivity” – the timeliness of it was impeccable. Let me try to say why.

Your worry is that we’re either cutting corners or being lazy. There’s multiple ways to think about that one.

The first perspective is just that if you didn’t do it and haven’t recognized any true loss from not doing it, you probably didn’t need to do it anyways. True, we may not be able to see the second- and third-order effects of not doing something – but rarely do we see those effects from doing it, either. I’m less sure about this one than the other perspectives.

The second perspective is just learning to drop shoulds you can’t act on. If there was no way you could complete that action and keep everything else afloat, then saying you should have done it is moot. Or, to take a lesson from ethics: “ought implies can” and, contrapositively, “not can implies not ought.”

The last perspective is whether or not the action added (or would) additional value. Odds are, if you don’t have time to write the 10 cards (not to overuse your example), you don’t have time to develop meaningful relationships with those 10 people. So writing them would be nice, but not necessarily value-added. Perhaps the middle ground is just to keep their names on file and next time you see them, let them know you’ve been looking forward to talking to them again. Same purpose is served, as you’re saying “hey, I remember you, and I had such a great time last time we met.”

I always like hearing from you, Jared. And no, I’m not just playing off my last sentence. :p

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:34:36 +0000

Thanks for these tips, Charlie. I’ve always been a fan of the “complete mind purge” but it’s a struggle to prioritize what actually gets accomplished. My method is to assign due dates or block out time for the ones that NEED to be accomplished in a given timeframe…but you’re right that that doesn’t address the bigger issue of how to decide on those bigger issues.

One of the things I notice is that if I give myself a list and then wait on it for a week, I’ll decide that half the things on the list aren’t worth getting done anymore. The challenge though, which I haven’t found an answer to, is to determine if I’m just rationalizing or whether I really could safely ignore them? For instance, if I have a stack of 20 business cards of people I enjoyed at an event and decide to only write to 10 after a week, am I really being more productive or just accepting the fact that I can’t write to all of them? Wouldn’t I have been better off struggling through all 20?

Before the trip we manage to get our head around accomplishing less, but is that truly productivity or is it just cutting corners?

By: Organize IT Recap: Trim Your To-Do List, GTD Criticism - Practical advice on personal development, productivity and GTD

Fri, 30 May 2008 20:16:51 +0000

[...] Productive Flourishing makes a very good point about to-do lists. No matter how much we get done we always focus more on the stuff we don’t do. The post is a great guide on how to trim your to-do lists to the bare essentials. I’ve written ten tasks you can remove from your own to-do list if you need extra inspiration. [...]