This is how I work.

We all have todo lists. Some of us have several todo lists. Maybe each project, or each client gets a list, followed by deadlines, and so on. Thousands of pages have been devoted on creating lists of things to do.

A typical productivity guide will devise a way to efficiently develop a todo list. Great, now you know how to build a list...but you still haven't accomplished anything. And lets be clear, you can't bill hours to building a list of things to do. So how do you do those things? How do you start? How do you know what to do next? I'm great at building lists, and terrible at using the lists.



Then I got better. And those that know me, will be shocked how this happened. I cut the cord, so to speak. Over the years, I've tried Outlook Tasks & Flags, Google Tasks, Evernote, Remember The Milk, and various other electronic organizational tools. I need something physical and omnipresent, and something I would use. And not to sound pretentious, but I found that in a Moleskine notebook (Ruled-Large).

So that's one piece of the system....a container for my todo list. Next piece, is organization and categorization. Each day has two pages, one for meeting notes for the day, and one for todo list items. I reserve about an inch on the left of the page to categorize each task and a 1/4 inch on the right as a checkbox to make sure it's complete.

At the beginning of each month, I mark the working day's pages with a date and the appropriate lines. I have two note cards at the end of each month, one for "Next Month's Goals" and one for "This Year's Goals". Since its now October, I might have to start thinking about "Next Year's Goals".

I write down all the tasks for the day on each day, if I don't finish the task that day, I write it down again tomorrow. Each day may start with a clean page, but not necessarily a clean set of tasks.

Using this system has worked well for me, and stuck with me for longer than most organizational techniques, which is to say about 6 weeks thus far. In part, the act of writing, helps imprint the task into my brain, better than typing does. Secondly, I find it hard to ignore the thing on my desk, open to today's list. I'm one who is easily distracted, so having a constant reminder is perfect for me.

So, I have my tasks, I have my organizational system...now how do I do the work? The list and organization are the foundational pieces. The action piece is accomplished in short bursts. Taking a cue from Agile, Get Things Done and Pomodoro, I break things up into small pieces and use a timer.  I set my timer for 25 minutes, and work in bursts like so:

email - task1 - email -task1 - meeting - email - lunch - email - task2 - email - meeting- meeting- task2 - email - DONE.

Using this method, I'm able to keep up with the flood of emails I get during the day, and stay focused for 2 hours of 'work' time, and include lunch and breaks for coffee refills and so on. Not every 'email' task takes 25 minutes, so maybe the task on hand gets some extra time, but you get the idea.

So what inspired me to document my process? Two things:
An article from ZenHabits on why 'writing it down doesn't actually accomplish anything' and the realization that todo lists are the start, not the end.

The This is how I Work series from Lifehacker.