To Do Lists

The last few days I've really been getting my act together GTD style! The biggest battle I currently face is removing the daily-to-do lists from my current system. David Allen does point out a few good reason why they don't work but it's hard to turn your back on something you've used for so long.

David makes it clear that daily-to-lists do not allow us to gather items ahead of time. For example a friend calls and is only in town for the afternoon. That's not on your lists and your list will no longer work for the day, items will get shifted and you have to make adjustments. Things come up, unpredictable actions are required so figuring out exactly everything we have to do in a day is nearly impossible in this sense. As easy as it is to move items to the next day with programs like MindManager it is still depressing at night when you see the actions that were originally listed have not been accomplished. Even though you may not be able to check everything off it does not mean your day was unproductive. It just means other things came up but the fact that you still have a whole lists of things to get done again can be depressing when looking back.

The second thing Mr. Allen reminds us of is the fact that lists often include items that don't necessarily have to get done. Things like going to class and reading that new magazine are found on that same list and the important, "must do" actions can become lost with all those other things you "would like" to do. You could prioritize items like I use to but this requires extra time and thinking and still requires you to sort through and look through the entire list just to find those important, must do items.

To get a better understanding of why To-Do-Lists maybe are not that great I suggest you read pages 40-41 in David Allen's Getting Things Done book. I am enjoying the refreshing new ideas and think they are going to really help me out in the future. A lot of is tailored to the business world and a new goal of mine is to relate some of the books biggest themes to students as many of the concepts and ideas can still be applied to students.

But what if you have not read David Allen's Getting Things Done book, find that Daily-to-Do lists work for you or that your current organization system works just fine. Your daily-to-do lists may be a viable solution but still could probably benefit from an update. There are many great tools to help you with the list making process and techcrunch has made a terrific post describing some of these options. I have not tried any myself but this post from techcrunch does a good job of describing all the different solutions and is really worth a read for those that really enjoy the use of these kind of lists.

I myself am trying to scavenge up some extra cash so that I can go about purchasing ResultsManager. As I continue to read Getting Things Done the power behind ResultsManager is becoming more clear and I am starting to actually lose that grip on my wallet. No decision has been made yet but I am currently battling the decision of picking up ResultsManager. I'll be sure to let you know if I take the plunge.

Here's the link to the TechCrunch Post
TechCrunch » Do More: Online To Do Lists Compared

posted by Jason Dorko at 11:21 PM 1 comments links to this post