Managing To Dos: What has worked so far

With the new year approaching, several friends have reached out asking me how to manage “To Do’s”, or my approach to getting things done.

This is a tough question as there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Over the last five years, I have experimented with several different methods.

This post will describe several concepts and tools that have worked for me. This is neither an authoritative list nor an exhaustive list. As always, feel free to share your own To Do management tips in the comments section!

Remembering to Live

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” attributed to (but most likely only popularised by) John Lennon.

Staring at our ever-expanding To-Do list, it is important to remember that life happens as we do, as we plan, as we think and as we write. Life is not one of these tasks, or is not what happens when we are finally done with our day’s work. It is happening the very moment you read this sentence.

Always a good preamble before heading into productivist considerations. Now let’s get doing!

Building something every day

We all get busy. Calls, meetings, emails, school, homework, commute, the list goes on. In the midst of our daily busyness, I always try to build something, or work on a meaningful project, for at least 30 minutes per day.

This may be building a new model at work, writing a blog post, preparing a lecture, running 10 km… The list goes on. What makes a task meaningful is up to you.

At the end of the day, whatever happens, you would have worked on something that means a lot to you. As a practical recommendation, what is your highest priority project at the moment? Could you work on it for at least 30 minutes every day?

Avoiding Brain Frying

As a Computer Scientist, I have a natural tendency to “tunnel” into a task and not stop until it is done or I am done. This process can be satisfying sometimes, but is not sustainable over a long day.

Speaking for myself, after three hours of focussed and uninterrupted work, my brain is fried for the day. Note: speaking with a few software engineer friends of mine, this varies from person to person.

Two years ago, I was as busy as ever, working simultaneously on: a tough project at work, preparing my first university course and learning Italian from 0 to B1 in three months. Yes, most of this was self-inflicted, that is not the topic of this post.

The only way I managed to survive this crazy period was rediscovering the pomodoro method. The idea is very simple, work in focussed bursts of 25 minutes separated by 5-10 minutes of break. I personally see several advantages to this technique:

• If you have an intimidating task, simply dedicate a pomodoro (25 minute) to it; it all of a sudden becomes manageable
  
• If a break interrupts you mid-flow, it will create an implicit desire to get back to work after the break, a very positive attitude to have
  
• Using this technique, I was able to work for hours without feeling fatigue

This is not a silver bullet, sustaining focussed work over long periods of time will make you tired. A good occasion to remember the Remembering to Live section.

List of Lists

A few months ago, my partner introduced me to the Microsoft To Do app. It is free and syncs over all of my devices, Apple/Windows/Android alike.

This app allows you to create tasks in lists. These tasks can have deadlines, reminders, steps, media and notes added to them. Other features also include shared lists and recurring tasks.

My favourite feature is the “My Day” tab, which groups all tasks due today. A brilliant way to have a feeling of achievement at the end of the day. Let’s face it, our To Do lists will never end, but what we have to do today should.

Before that, I used to keep way too many things in my head and on hand-written lists on scraps on paper. After a year of using the app, I wonder how I lived all of these years without it.

On Knowing What to Do

The above sections describe how I do what I have to do. But how does one know what they have to do? In other words, to do or not to do?

This is the related problem of goal setting. I currently set goals with four main time-frames: yearly, monthly, weekly and daily.

• Yearly: I set 3 top priorities for the year, generally mildly scary goals such as learning to speak a new language fluently, getting a promotion, teaching a university course or publishing a blog
  
• Monthly: I then assign one priority to every month, on which I will try to work for at least 30 minutes per day
  
• Weekly: Monday planning with team and meeting preparation. Review and preparation of the following week on Fridays
  
• Daily: Do the priority item and other cognitively demanding tasks in the morning. Regular administrative tasks and meetings in the evening

Final Thoughts

There are probably as many to-do management systems as there are doers. This is a topic I keep coming back to. The process of writing this was already a huge help in clarifying my thoughts on this. I hope that you have found this useful in some way.