As as busy web developer, business owner and freelancer I am always looking at ways to increase productivity. Since running my own company I no longer look at the clock willing every second to pass until it is time to go home, instead I look at the clock at 4pm and wonder where the hours have gone – if only there was more time in the day!
With every second of the day so precious, productivity has become almost an obsession for me over the last year and possibly, like many others, I became a slave to the to-do list.
I discovered many problems with to-do lists. Firstly I often found myself trying to reduce list as quickly as I could by completing all the small jobs first. It feels good to cross items off a list doesn’t it? !Although your list may reduce in size tackling tasks in this way doesn’t take into account priorities. For example, the chances are that you will probably choose the two minute job over the two hour job every time because of the psychological payoff of completing the task.
A to-do list gives also no context to the tasks. For example, how long a task might take, what needs to happen for a task to complete or even how much time you have to complete the task. I would often find items on my list for months, this was often because the task seemed to big or vague, or I hadn’t put broken it down or thought about how long it would take to complete.
With a to-do list was there was no real way to measure my productivity or account for my time. Yes, some days I could look back and see I had crossed of 10 items, and that might feel good, but another day I might not be able to cross off 1, but that didn’t mean I didn’t make great progress on a project.
Finally, with a to-do list I began to find myself playing an impossible game of trying to clear my list – an accomplishment I was never able to claim. I would often feel quite downbeat when my day ended with more items on my list than I started with. Something needed to change – and it has.
So what is the solution? Well its simply to use my calendar instead. By taking my tasks and scheduling them into my calendar I am able to get a much clearer perspective on how long tasks actually take, I am able to assess, prioritise and decide when the task is going to be completed. If more tasks pop up during the day, they need scheduling in. This way of working really helps me to stop jumping from task to task, I am able to stay focused, especially with larger tasks or projects.
I was inspired by a wrist watch I saw advertised that just had one hand which counted down the hours in a day. The idea behind the watch was to give a better perspective as to how long you have in a day. No matter how hard you try, a day only has 24 hours in it and you have a limited amount of time every day to work, by scheduling time I find you use every second far more productively, you start to understand exactly how long each task takes and helps you focus on completing tasks within a certain time frame.
I tend to try and have a rough schedule for the entire week which I work out on Monday morning then each evening before leaving work I write a more detailed schedule for the following day. That way, when I come into work and fire up the computer I am ready to start working.
It is also worth mentioning its a good idea to plan in short breaks throughout the day as well – making sure I stop to make a coffee or just stretch the legs for a couple of minutes has proved to really help my concentration and state of mind.
I haven’t got rid of my to-do list completely, I tend to use it to remind myself of tasks that I need to schedule in, especially useful if things crop up during the day.
Give it a go – it takes a couple of weeks to get used to, but if you are a slave to your to-do list I think you will find this a really useful new way of working.