The insane method I created to help manage my tasks
An important tool that transformed the way I think
Why did I need this?
Being 100% efficient is something we all dream of, but rarely (or likely never) achieve.
I’ve tried so many ways of managing my day: from planning it to every minute, to having no plan and have my brain do what it pleases.
Back in school, I had something like this:
Even then, at such a young age, I started to notice how impossible it is to stick to a timetable. At the very least, there are two major problems:
- You can’t “control” your brain to function like a timetable
- You can never stick to your plan, due to unexpected social commitments, delays and deadlines
Every time I noticed a problem, I’d try to reinvent a different way of planning. The table below shows, relative to the school timetable, some of the planning methods that I’ve used, along with their pros and cons.
Looking at all the planning methods from a higher-level point of view, there were a couple of things I noticed:
- Calendars are very good for handling long term events, such as deadlines, trips, holidays, etc…
- A daily diary (or planner) is powerful for capturing unexpected events, such as daily tasks that don’t repeat
- A schedule (like what I had in school) is best for capturing repeating events
Though the above seems somewhat trivial, its actually quite profound. The daily diary is the antithesis of a schedule. So even if you try to combine them, there will be a loss of what they each do best!
One final problem is that none of the above methods capture tasks that are important to you, yet difficult to commit to.
For example: whenever I’d try to read regularly, I’d end up skipping it, either by spending more time on my phone, or because some tasks take longer than expected. That’s because the priority of “reading” was ill-defined: no matter which method I used (Calendars, Diary or a Schedule), I’d always skip it.
Defining the problem
In summary, my thinking led to me finding 4(+1) important themes that are necessary (and together sufficient) for a fulfilling day-to-day.
These are:
- Work: this describes tasks that are related to what you consider “work”
- Social: this describes your social commitments and family commitments
- Future: this describes your aspirations for the future and what you need to do to get there
- Growth / Learning: the definition of this is somewhat vague, but necessary because your interests are broad and constantly changing. It describes what you would like to learn more about, out of interest and not necessary out of need, and also how you would like to grow.
The (+1) refers to pseudo-theme that was lacking in all my previous timetabling methods:
Daily Minimums: “Tasks that you need to do every day, at minimum, to feel minimally fulfilled”. So even if you have a bad work day, doing those tasks will give you a feeling of purpose. For example: my Daily Minimums are: reading, following the news and exercise.
If you’re not doing these tasks every day, then either you need to try harder or you need to ask yourself if they are that important to you in the first place!
I appreciate that the 4(+1) themes won’t be the same for everyone. You may only need the Daily Minimum, Work and Social. Others might not care for Growth / Learning. Some might even invent other “themes”. The point is that this is the hard part of planning: YOU need to figure out what YOU require for fulfilment, and plan according to that. The above are things that work for me, they might for you too.
The method
To keep track of everything, I use 4 documents:
- High-level planner (What you want)
The themes are as explained above. What you write in them is completely up to you; I’ve used made-up points to illustrate.
You can see that each theme is split into sections, which are each split into subsections, and when necessary, bullet points are added. The bullet points can be tasks that you need to keep an eye on, or ideas. This is all up to you. I try to write them in a way that is most natural to me.
- Low-level planner (Tasks to do)
This tries to capture both a physical Daily Diary and a schedule. The first column, Short term goals represents the short term tasks that you need to do. Each task has do-by date (in brackets). When these are white, that means that the task is behind.
Everything is ordered by importance though, using a combination of the date and the importance of the task. For instance, Task 4 (Watch lecture from Harvard courses) is overdue, but because Laundry and Check into flight are more important, they are higher up.
The advantage of this is that you can plan for unexpected tasks with relative ease.
The On-going tasks column tries to emulate the schedule by capturing repeating tasks, with the difference being that there is no tight time bind (like you’d have on an actual schedule). Instead, you have normal tasks, and those of lower priority.
The Daily Mininum column is self-explanatory.
Finally, the Tasks that you need to start column tries to capture a semi-long term tasks or projects that you would like to start. The ones with no label are of most importance. The moment your timetable frees up (in a holiday for example), you’ll move them to On-going tasks. “Pending” describes task that are contingent on other ones. For example: you can’t develop a website for your business if you don’t have the skills. “Freeze” describes really long term tasks that you want to keep an eye on. You’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, but you’ve left that ‘frozen’ because realistically, you don’t expect you’ll have enough time.
Tasks that you need to start, in a nutshell, takes the most important bits from the High-level-planner, so that when you’re planning your days, you don’t have to get lost.
- Logbook (Reflection)
The logbook is to be used for three things: keeping track of your Daily Minimums (I simple use checkboxes), logging what you do during the day (for example: 2 hours spent on Personal Business and sent email to Joe), and most importantly, reflection.
The last bit requires you to look at what you did during the day, and make a note of what went well, but didn’t make you feel fulfilled, and what you can do tomorrow to improve it.
- Calendar (Long term planning)
Just a normal calendar with the important dates. This is important for it allows you to keep track of the longer goals. When they fall into the ‘short term’ then you can add them under “Short term goals” within Low-level-planner.
In summary
The thought process is something like this:
- Write down what you need to keep you fulfilled in each of the 4(+1) themes
- Create actionable tasks from the above, while also keeping a link (Tasks that you need to do column) alive, to remember the most important bits
- Classify your actionable tasks into short and long term, and put them in the appropriate columns, as well as any relevant do-by dates
- Use the logbook to monitor your daily tasks (this would include short, long and daily minimum tasks); make sure you reflect on them too
- Use the calendar to feed back into 3.
Remember that all of the sections can be modified at all times, so that you let your brilliant mind add tasks dynamically.
To conclude…
Having read the article and reflected on your own experiences, you must surely acknowledge that there is no perfect method of planning.
The method I presented works for me. It is not perfect, but it’s substantially better than any of my previous attempts. I hope that you can learn something from it too. Most importantly though, you need to make sure that you have a good think about what fulfils you.
Should I find an alternative way of achieving similar or better results, I’ll definitely share it.
All images provided by author unless stated otherwise.
