![]() ![]() Whether you’re a committed web 2.0 wonk who wants all your lists to live in the cloud, a hardcore pen-and-paper person, or a techie who’s not quite ready to live on the Web just yet, there are simple solutions to keep your lists handy. Daily summaries: A one- or two-line summary of the day’s events can help to remind you of problems that arose as well as how you dealt with them, as well as track behavioral patterns that might point to illness, conflict with certain people, or other issues.Īll those lists seems like a lot to juggle, doesn’t it?Īctually, it’s not that hard.Keeping a list of your exercise achievements, food consumption, words written, or other set of data appropriate for your projects will help you measure your progress as well as identify problems (like if your output drops on certain days of the week or month, or you seem to crave certain foods on certain days). Logs: Broadly speaking, a log is a list of events tied to specific dates/times.Reference: Any information you find yourself referring to often can make a useful list – metric conversions, file types, software registration keys, birthdays, the names of your children, whatever.I also like to have a list of areas of focus, the different roles that I play, each of which comes with a different set of tasks and goals. Life lists: A list of your short- and long-term goals can be a great motivator, as well as a trigger list to help generate new projects.Keeping a list of all these sites and your login info can be a lifesaver! Also, if you keep a list online, you can have active links to each application, making a pretty useful start page. Links and logins: In these days of proliferating web applications, almost everyone has dozens, if not hundreds, of websites they need to log into on a regular basis.Basically, this is a list of books you’ve read with notes and adequate information to recall the text later. Reading journal: A while back I suggested that students (and other readers) keep a reading journal.Checklists: Any recurrent multi-step tasks – like packing for a business trip, arranging a presentation, or winterizing your home – can be done more easily and with fewer errors if you write up a simple checklist of all the steps involved and equipment needed.Keep a list of odd, attractive, or just-right-for-you-know-who items throughout the year to help make Christmas, birthday, and anniversary shopping less stressful. Gift ideas: Nothing’s worse than the approach of Christmas with no idea of what to get someone close to you.Every week, I’d print it off, cross off anything I didn’t need, and add anything that wasn’t on the list, and go shopping. ![]() Grocery/shopping lists: One of my most effective lists is a simple one-page list I made of all the groceries I regularly bought, arranged in the order I’d find them at my local store, with a few blank spaces every so often for one-off additions.When you have the money, or the time, you can take out your list and see what you want most of all. For example, I want a new electric guitar, but I’m not going to run out and buy one. Wish lists: A wishlist is a list of things you want to buy but don’t need right away.And a list of projects will help you make sure you’re keeping up with all your commitments. Project planning: Creating a list of tasks associated with a projects can be a great way to wrap your head around the project, as well as a prompt for what to do next when you finish a task.For more information about task lists, check out my “ Back to Basics” post from last year. A running list of the tasks you have to get done can make your life significantly easier, provided you use it religiously. Task lists: Naturally, the most obvious is the task list, a simple list of things you have to do.Some of the lists that can make you more productive or otherwise make life easier include: Lists in general are powerful tools – open-ended, constantly growing, and effective at extending our memories past the 7 or so things we can keep on our mind at any given time. At the center of just about every personal productivity system are lists – GTD has it’s context lists, Pomodoro has it’s action inventory and daily to-do lists, todoodlist has, well, the todoodlist, and so on.īut there are a lot of different kinds of lists besides your task or to-do list that can help you be more productive. ![]()
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