I’m still a fan of the handwritten to-do list.

I know people really like many of the electronic alternatives, like using Google Tasks, or Trello, but I really like handwriting my to-do list.  Somewhat it’s habit, and somewhat it’s because years ago mrDiva took a Franklin Covey class and part of the system is to re-write, by hand, your to-do list each morning.  I don’t do that but I appreciate why it’s advised, so I stick with the handwritten list.

Also, as I go through the week and attend meetings, I take handwritten notes, and then put a circle in the margin next to anything that is a “to-do” for later.  Then when I have downtime, I either do those things, or transfer them to a central task list.

Starting this week, I’m trying two new things.

The first is something that I’ve been thinking is a good idea for a long time, but recently got re-affirmed when I attended Carson Tate’s session at the Mass Conference for Women.  Everything I put on my to-do list is going to start with verb.

No more “2016 budget.”  Now it will be “Draft 2016 budget.”  No more “Blogger strategy,” now it will be “Analyze blogger strategy.”

The reason for this is two fold. One – it’s more obvious how big a task it is if I write it as a verb. Analyzing a strategy is different from creating a strategy which is different from executing a strategy. They take different amounts of effort.  Two – another piece of advice from Tate is to group similar types of tasks together; as such, it is hard to do that if you don’t know what the task actually is.

The other new thing I’m trying with my task list is to keep a yellow post-it on my computer with the tasks that absolutely must get done that day.  I know a lot of people think that it’s a bad idea to keep different to-do lists, but I have had too many time-sensitive things fall through the cracks lately.  I’m hoping this is a good solution to that. Kind of like HSM for tasks.

I’ll let you know how everything goes.