Another take on tasks

So I have a to-do list and it seems to works ok.

The Nag is another way of working with tasks, in that they send you 'nags' of things you might do (in their case to help the environment or whatever). So you get a nudge or reminder to do things that you might not otherwise do.

One way of doing this for yourself is to set reminders, for example using Microsoft Outlook, you can set tasks with dates way off in the future. They might be 're-visit business plan' to remind you that you need to look again at the goals you set yourself when you started out, or 'pay council tax' if you always forget to do this regular but mundane task. then you can just forget about it until it becomes due.

Genius

More to do lists

You'll remember our last post on to-do lists . Well, much as I love the Zen-like simplicty of Now Do This, it turns out it's a bit linear for my mind.

I've gone back to Ta-Da list, because I don't have to write my list in the order I need to do things. But honestly, for everyday tasks I have gone back to recycling scrap paper and writing up a list for each morning, either before the work of the day starts, or just before packing up time.



Picture credit:Florian

I also heard something somewhere that you should aim to do three things off a list per day, to avoid running yourself down because you're not clearing the 'Learn Esperanto' item that's been on your list for the last 3 million years. Dustin Wax from Stepcase Lifehack recommends you have a Someday/Maybe list. Could work, except would this list simply grow with no incentive to tackle the items on it.

Others recommend that you break the items on the 'long' list down and put the first step of that onto your daily list.

So in order to learn Esperanto, I need to find a free podcast course. The next day I could go to iTunes and sign up to the podcast, day three, download onto iPod, day four watch first episode and so on. These steps would go onto my daily task list one at a time and before I know it I'll be asking 'Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?'


Oh and for the TV fans, Learn Esperanto was on Arnold J Rimmer's to do list in series 2 of the BBC show Red Dwarf. How do I know this?... Wasted youth.

Zen, and the art of to-do lists

Anyone who's sat in an office with me for more than five minutes, will probably know that I like to write a list of things to do. Some of you have noticed that if I don't write down what I say I'm going to do, I probably won't do it. Not necessarily because I look back at my notes, but because the act of writing it down seems to store it in my head.

Plus, I have a note of it to prompt me when I forget.

Head like a sieve.

So when someone gives me a tip on to-do lists, organising my day, generally being task focussed, I feel the need to share it. I found a lovely little web app today that I'm just busting to share. Unfortunately for you guys, there's no-one here right now, so you're all gonna get it!

Its so simple, it's great!


Read this blog post on Manage Life about making tasks easy!

New to this blogging business?

Good, so am I!

I have been accused of spamming the NTU SPEED students, so have entered the murky world of blogging to keep you up to date. I get passed so much information might be useful to you, I shall be using my blog to pass it on.

Sadly, this post will be about accounting software, mostly because yours truly hosted a fabulous session on the same last week. The lovely Amanda from Flying Cows http://www.flying-cows.com/ has passed a couple of links to me that you may find useful.I haven't used them myself but Amanda uses and recommends the first two. Thanks Mandy

for invoicing and more
http://www.sidejobtrack.com/

for project planning http://www.dotproject.net/ although it seems to be offline today

this link was in an email from webpronews about client relation management http://www.vendorguru.com/The_5_Must_Have_Features_CRM_Solution.jsp?&CCID=20071742203283756&QTR=ZZf200705141302260Za20071742Zg171Zw0Zm0Zc203283756Zs5436ZZ&CLK=682070521085209511&&exp=y

For SPEED students at NTU, check out the SPEED module on the VLP SPEED0001, there's a couple of recent presentations on there.

For those of you who have forgotten what we look like, that's Phil on the left...

More soon

Jayne