Reconsidering the To-Do List

Growing up, I was taught to do the work first, have fun later. It became a habit, one that worked fairly well over time. Change and feed  the baby first, then make and eat your own lunch. Do the laundry before you sit down to read a book, so you’ll have clean clothes to wear. Clean the house before you go to the movies so you won’t have to clean the house at night, waking the neighbors (in an apartment).

Could be my to-do list, but it’s a photo of Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” which, after two years of research, he wrote in three weeks on a roll of teletype paper.

That “work first, fun later” became so ingrained, the habit became part of my way of thinking. I never questioned it. Now it’s time to question that way of thinking.

First consideration: art is work. If I think of creative time as fun, it will always come last, when I’m tired and not ready for deep creative work. Creative work is part of my life, and needs to be honored as an important part of my life.

Second consideration: Consider the time something will take. It might be worthwhile to do something that takes a short time and it fun between two items that take a longer time. For example, I love stopping by the library to look at their sale books. These $1-$4 bargains are great for artwork. It makes sense to go to the library between getting gas and picking up pet food, since the library is between these two points. Putting it off for another time wastes gas and makes me more likely to do the chores.

Third consideration: Priorities trump labels. There are boring chores that can be done while watching TV. The other day, I realized that I had accumulated a huge amount of spam and pingbacks on my website. These can’t be erased all at once, but only 20 at a time. Because I have a special offer up on my website (for readers of Quilting Arts magazine’s October/November issue), I didn’t want 3,300 comments to distract people to spam sites. I immediately began to erase them. But wait–not so fast–this is something that is mindless. I can do it while I’m doing the laundry, waiting for the floor to dry, or while watching the national news. Best of all, I can combine listening to an audio book or podcast late at night, when I’m too tired to do deep creative work.

Looking at my to-do list with a fresh eye to priorities, time and labels is a good way to create a new schedule for fall, when my morning walk starts to be at later times (walking at dawn is no longer a 4:30 a.m. start, it’s closer to 6:00 a.m.) and I have creative time before my walk.

Let me know if you are going to changing your schedule. It might be an interesting experiment.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and a writer. She also teaches what she knows.

Pimp my Moleskine

Note: Quinn McDonald is teaching at the GASC Convention in Arlington, TX. This is a blog post from 2010. A new blog post will appear on Saturday.

Moleskine makes a variety of journals and notebooks: different sizes, uses, colors, and page designs–lined, plain, grid. They have a soft notebook sold in a double pack–two coordinated colors–that I use as a to-do list and to take notes

To-do list Moleskine in acid green and melon orange.

on when I’m on the phone or online. The 5″ x 8″cover is coated cardboard in a variety of bright colors, the inside paper is cream-colored and there is no ribbon marker or inside back pocket.

I use them because they are clever and useful for remembering what you did when. Sure, I could check my electronic calendar, but my notebook had additional information—as a to-do list with a date on each page it shows activities, phone numbers, shortcuts or alternative routes. There are interesting quotes from blogs and books and floor plans of grocery stores so I know where favorite products are. You get the idea.

In four to five months, I fill up the 60-page notebook and store it. Great for tax-time and memory jogs. If I’m ever asked “Where were you on the night of October 19, 2007?” I can pull out the to-do list notebook and  give the correct answer.

But the problem with the soft cover Moleskine is it doesn’t have a back pocket.

Index card, taped into place, on inside back cover of the Moleskine.

Where to put the receipts, business cards and gift cards?

The pimp is incredibly easy. Take a 4 x 6-inch index cards (I’ve loved index cards since the second grade and keep finding more uses for them), turn it the long way and and cut it diagonally. (See the image).

Tape it to the inside back cover, so the shorter side of the cut faces toward the inside of the book. If anything should slip out, it will be held in place by the rest of the pages.

Tape is more useful than glue because you get the full use of the index card size and the tape allows the card to bend slightly, giving you more flexibility.

That’s all there is to it. You now have a pocket in the back of your moleskine. Total time: under three minutes. That includes finding the 4 x 6 inch index cards.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and ultimate practical person who helps other people adjust to change through creativity coaching.

To-Do Lists: Use Index Cards

To-do lists can work for you or make you crazy. There are many ways to create them, and the only one that works is the one that works for you. I love index cards. I always have. So yes, this is another post about index cards. I can’t help it. If I had to belong to a 12-step program to break the habit, I’d write the steps on index cards.

I use a paper to-do list. Even with all the electronics, the fastest, most efficient list-making for me is done with a pencil and index. card.  I don’t have to boot it up, recharge it, or open it. It’s available to me at all times, and a pencil doesn’t need to be connected, opened, or tested. It’s always ready to go. I’ll admit I have a pencil thing.

Here are two ways to use a to-do list. Both involve 3 x 5 index cards, or 4 x 6 cards if you write big.  (I turn the cards and work on them portrait-orientation.) I work on several projects at a time, so I use one card per project. Each project’s name is written on the top of the card, and the to-do list underneath. That way, I can put all the project to-do lists next to each other and see how much work I have and which project needs to take priority. When I have a lot of projects going at the same time, it’s wonderful.

Bright colored index cards available from monstermarketplace.com or other locations.

When I get really into projects, I assign one color to each project, and color code the cards to match the project. (You can also use different color cards.) Color coding gives me overviews and helps me draw conclusions faster. (“A lot of blue cards, do I need to farm some of this out?” “The yellow project is due in a week. Why so few yellow cards? Am I done early, or is there something missing?”)

Then there is the worry list to-do list. When I wake up at night, unable to sleep and busy worrying, I make a list of things I’m worrying about. Having written down the worries, I go back to sleep. The next morning, I tackle the things that need to be done.

The last to-do list is called the tag-cloud to-do list. Because I use the same method as tag clouds–the more important a task, the bigger I write it. Because I have small handwriting, I draw a box around each item on the list. The bigger the box, the more important (or worrisome, or pressing) the item. That gives me two facts at once: the item and the importance, all in one glance.

You can use a mix of these methods. Color-coding works with tag-clouding very well.  Tag-clouding works with worry-list well, too. And no matter what method I choose, writing down all the things that need to get done helps me free up more memory cells.

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach and a trainer  who found out long ago that the shortest pencil beats the longest memory. And she is unabashedly in love with index cards.

To-Do Lists that Help You Work

To-do lists can work for you or make you crazy. There are many ways to create them, and the only one that works is the one that works for you.

First, I have to admit that I use a paper to-do list. Even with all the electronics, the fastest, most efficient list-making for me is done with a pencil and index. card.  I don’t have to boot it up, recharge it, or open it. It’s available to me at all times, and a pencil doesn’t need to be connected, opened, or tested. It’s always ready to go. I’ll admit I have a pencil thing.

Here are two ways to use a to-do list. Both involve 3 x 5 index cards, or 4 x 6 cards if you write big.  (I turn the cards and work on them portrait-orientation.) I work on several projects at a time, so I use one card per project. Each project’s name is written on the top of the card, and the to-do list underneath. That way, I can put all the project to-do lists next to each other and see how much work I have and which project needs to take priority. When I have a lot of projects going at the same time, it’s wonderful.

When I get really into projects, I assign one color to each project, and color code the cards to match the project. (You can also use different color cards.) Color coding gives me overviews and helps me draw conclusions faster. (“A lot of blue cards, do I need to farm some of this out?” “The yellow project is due in a week. Why so few yellow cards? Am I done early, or is there something missing?”)

Then there is the worry list to-do list. When I wake up at night, unable to sleep and busy worrying, I make a list of things I’m worrying about. Having written down the worries, I go back to sleep. The next morning, I tackle the things that need to be done.

The last to-do list is called the tag-cloud to-do list. Because I use the same method as tag clouds–the more important a task, the bigger I write it. Because I have small handwriting, I draw a box around each item on the list. The bigger the box, the more important (or worrisome, or pressing) the item. That gives me two facts at once: the item and the importance, all in one glance.

You can use a mix of these methods. Color-coding works with tag-clouding very well.  Tag-clouding works with worry-list well, too. And no matter what method I choose, writing down all the things that need to get done helps me free up more memory cells.

Image: http://www.ontimesupplies.com

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach and a trainer specializing in communicating. That includes Writing for the Web and Giving Powerful Presentations. See all the topics at QuinnCreative.com © 2007 -9 All rights reserved.

Tutorial: Index Cards Do it All

Index cards are inexpensive and come in several sizes. I’ve written about using index card as a to-do list before. Now I’ve found an organizational system that combines index cards and rollabind disks and makes sense for organizational problems.

I carry a paper calendar because I need to know what isn’t happening as well as what is, and only paper calendars do that. In other words, If I’m meeting with a difficult client, I’m not booking another stressful event right next to it. My desktop calendar doesn’t show things that way, it simply shows dots, and sure, I could polka-dot up a few days, but without context I could run into trouble. Someone will certainly invent calendar software that shows holidays and works easily with my existing computer calendar, because I haven’t seen one yet.

My calendar goes with me, and so does a thin notebook and here is where the index cards come in. The thin notebook covers meeting notes, phone numbers, to-do lists and deadlines. Because I have a visual memory, I’ll know what side of the page that name and phone number was on, so using index cards wasn’t helping me. I couldn’t find my non-project notes fast enough.

Here’s the solution: I used some of the divider index cards and created a cover and separator pages, creating a book of its own. The book works on rollabind rings, giving it a spatial relationship. I can shift project cards and to do lists, but the notecards from phone calls and information (urls, ideas, people’s names) stay in the same order. When I get too many, I transfer them, in the same order, onto a storage “book.” Because I date each card, I keep them in date order and can find that great dim-sum restaurant in Chandler again, because I know it was on the left side of the page, right after the directions to the paper store in Tempe, which I looked for in March. My memory works that way.

The great thing about this system is that you can also file in alpha order, project order, geographical order–whatever makes sense to you. It’s not limited. Rollabind rings let you take out pages and reposition them without damage, and with complete ease, so the system becomes versatile. Remember the calendar? It’s also on rollabind disks, so I can pull out to-do lists and put them in the calendar as a reminder until the job is done. Or put notes about a client in the appointment day, so I’ll remember the personal and business details that work for a good relationship.

The combination of index cards, rollabind disks, calendars and imagination are limitless. You don’t have to purchase a lot of equipment to personalize your organizational system, and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. I like 4 x 6 cards for project notes, but nothing beats a 3 x 5 card for idea generation. And in this system, you can use both.

It’s a system that works and is ideal is you travel or have limited space to keep your work.

–Quinn McDonald is a trainer in business communications. She runs workshops in writing, speaking and giving presentations. She uses index cards to organize ideas for presentations and articles. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.

Working Your To-Do List

It’s always the same. When people want you to do one more thing, generally something that is more important to them than you, they suggest you do it right before you go to bed. I now start going to bed at 5 p.m. just so I can get all those last-minute things done by midnight.

A few of my coaching clients tell me that they hate writing to-do lists. The reason, they say, is that it is a roll-call of failure. Items that don’t get done reproach them daily for being lazy. Being lazy is not a bad thing. Often lazy people are very bright, and they develop smart shortcuts that help them accomplish things quickly, efficiently and with accuracy, giving them time to do what they choose.

How can you make “lazy” work for you? Take a look at that to-do list. It’s probably filled with big, clunky projects that you don’t want to do. Maybe a few small things that you can do quickly. So you do those. If you are like most people (including me), you’ll put a few things on that list that you have already done, or do automatically (like brushing your teeth), just so you can get something checked off.

Here’s a better way to manage the lists:

1. Write down those things you need to get done. Big, small, write them all down. That will not only keep you from forgetting, but also take a weight off your mind. That alone makes a list worthwhile. I like index cards for this, so I can keep the list in front of me, but you can use whatever makes you feel comfortable. It is easier to use a piece of paper you don’t have to re-write constantly–a page you can move in your notebook.

2. Create the list at the end of the workday. It preps you for the next day, and is a good way to wind up your time in the office. You’ll set priorities while they are fresh in your mind.

3. Circle three things that have to get done. Just three. The things that make the most impact, have the highest priority, clear the widest swath of time in your day.

4. Take another 3 index cards. Writing just on the front, put one item on each card and jot down the steps needed for each. People you have to call, meetings to set, research to be done, things to look up. Some lists will have one item on them, for example, “Call  Jason Pierce for article interview.” Others will have several steps. That’s it. Walk away from your office.

5. The next morning, once you arrive at work, pick up one of the three index cards and get to work. Don’t check your emails first. Checking emails is a sabotage of getting work done. Don’t take phone calls until you get the items on the first index cards done. If one of the items is to do an interview, pick up the phone and get it done. If you haven’t made an appointment, get that part done.

6. Once you have accomplished the steps on the first index card, you can look at your emails or pick up your voice mails.  Don’t get sucked into your emails. Answer the most important ones, but if there is a task to do, it goes on your to-do list. Most people waste an enormous amount of time reading and answering emails in the order they receive them instead of in the order of importance.

7. Tackle the second index card before lunch and the last one by mid afternoon. Getting three items accomplished well and completely is not as common as you might think. You’ll have to fight off interruptions, the drifters who come in to waste your time, and the drama people who like to create emergencies so they can be heroes and solve them.  Tell them you are busy right now. It’s true, and it works.

At the end of the work day, repeat the to-do list process. You’ll find your to-do list shrinking and your email list manageable. Many emails are simply people commenting on your emails because they feel they have to.

Once you get into the habit of doing three important things each day, and doing them well, you will find yourself less stressed, less crazy, and more productive.

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach who develops and teaches business communication courses. You can see her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved.  Image: Einstein’s to-do list: http://www.curiostudio.com