Roger Hyttinen | Author

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Dumping the To-Do List

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calendar screen shotI’ve kept an electronic to-do list for years now, and every day, like clockwork, I find myself swiping the majority of the tasks in that day’s agenda to reschedule them for the next day. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, and essential tasks habitually end up getting moved from one day to the next and the next and the next.

Then, a while back I watched a video of someone who advocated a “calendar-based” lifestyle in which rather than creating never-ending to-do lists, everything is scheduled on the calendar.

Everything.

The idea here is that the reason we fail to tick off all the items on our to-do list is that we underestimate how long it takes us to perform tasks. We add 25 items to our list when in reality, it’s only physically possible for us to complete 11 of them. Moreover, when every hour is scheduled on a calendar — including breaks, relaxation, and meals — there is less chance of us getting distracted or forgetting to do something.

I did a bit more research into this, and as it turns out, many productivity folks use and advocate a calendar-based productivity system rather than a to-do list based one. The more I read about this, the more it made sense to me, so I decided to give it a try myself in 2019. I spent a good portion of a day creating a workable schedule though I imagine it will go through several iterations until I tweak it enough that it works.

What’s important here is that every single item that I want to accomplish during the day is on my calendar and that every one of those items has a notification set to it so that I’ll be alerted when it’s time to switch gears. To start out with,  I set the default notification to 5 minutes for tasks and 30 minutes for appointments.

I’m looking forward to delving into this system and seeing whether it’ll help me to be more productive. Perhaps 2019 will be the year when I’ll retire my not-so-trusty to-do list application.

Stay tuned for further developments.

Give Yourself a Gold Star

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Good Job on paper imae

When I was reading The Happiness Project, a comment that Gretchen made several times caught my attention. She said that she likes to receive gold stars. That is to say, when she does something, she likes to receive some sort of feedback or at the very least acknowledgment, perhaps something as simple as hearing “great job!” after cleaning the kitchen. I chuckled when I read this as I was able to completely relate. I’m guessing that many of us can as well. There’s no denying that it’s often nice to get a pat on the back for our accomplishments.

This idea can be applied to our goals and resolutions as well. Giving yourself some manner of reinforcement can provide the necessary motivation to keep making progress. For me, something as simple as keeping a log of what I’m doing is enough to motivate me. I love to ride my bicycle in the summer and in the past, I typically managed it two or three times a week. But since I began keeping track of my mileage, I noticed that I was riding more – almost every day in fact. Seeing a notebook full of my mileage statistics seemed to give me extra motivation. The same thing worked for me when I quit smoking. I literally put a gold star on the calendar for each day that I went without a cigarette (I changed it to smiley faces after I ran out of stars). Even though it was silly reinforcement, it was reinforcement nonetheless. I find that without reinforcement, we tend to give up.

This can be applied to hobbies as well. I have an iPhone app called “Level Me Up!” which I use for my harp practice. I set the timer whenever I sit down at my harp — the eventual goal being 10,000 hours of practice (the idea is that if you do anything for 10,000 hours, you will inevitably become an expert at it). After each increment of 20 or so hours, you move up to the next level – and receive a round of applause when you do. It’s a cute little app but effective. It makes me want to attain that milestone of 10,000 hours so I keep going. I love the feeling of moving closer to that goal, level by level, applause by applause.

Why not give it a try? Start keeping track of your progress and your milestones. See how it changes your motivation. Those little gold stars just might help you to keep your New Year Resolutions.

Photo courtesy of stevendepolo

Technology is Great – But We Need Plan B

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Today I was at the library and I was informed that all computers were down because their servers were being updated. This meant that nobody could check out any items. I thought it strange that this was occurring in the middle of the day but who am I to question anyone’s business practices? This same sort of thing happened to me about a week ago at the grocery store. All of their computers were down meaning that nobody could check out and pay for their groceries. So people abandoned their carts and left the store. This got me thinking about our dependence on technology and how crippled we become if our systems don’t cooperate, to the point of being unable to carry out even the most basic transactions like ring up a sale.

Now I’m no Luddite. Quite the opposite, actually. I love technology and there is no arguing that it makes our lives so much easier. But to totally get rid of manual processes so that we are 100% dependent on technology may not be the best idea. I personally like to have a “Plan B”. If one of my customers calls me and wishes to place an order, I like to know that I can process the transaction even if my Internet connection is down. Now I may not be able to process the charge immediately (although I now can now do so via my smart phone) but I can at least take down the information (yes, with pen and paper) and run it through later on, once the system comes back online.

Likewise, I have never been comfortable with the idea of moving ALL of my information to “The Cloud.”  I am aware of people who no longer store any of their information locally on their computer but rather everything is saved to someone else’s servers – such as Google or MobileMe. I do use the cloud to store my important files but only as a backup solution – my only copy is never stored on the cloud. In fact, I use several different online backup solutions, in addition to storing my information on my computer’s hard drive. I also perform regular backups to an external drive that I store away from my computer. I do not see the cloud as a suitable replacement for local storage.

So while I definitely embrace technology, I believe it should not be our only solution and recommend having a Plan B – and even a Plan C and D – especially if it could result in the loss of a sale. This reminds me of a blog comment that I recently read where the reader stated, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, especially if it’s someone else’s basket.”

Photo by landofnodstudios

How to Accomplish Goals a Little At A Time

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Image of yellow note

I write computer training manuals for my print-on-demand courseware company and each day, I tell myself that I will write at least one section, no matter what. To ensure that this is done, I do not allow myself to go to bed at night until I have written my one section. Now, I admit that there has been a night or two where I found myself at my desk at 1:00 am, frantically pounding away at my keyboard so that I could go to bed. Now, this doesn’t mean that I cannot write more than one section – in fact, most days, I write 4 or 5. But the point is, that I must write at least 1.

A few years ago I began the task of transcribing my paperbound journals into an electronic journal application. I have drawers and drawers of journal notebooks. But as part of my daily routine, I key in one entry. By chopping away at this a little at a time, I have almost completely finished entering them in – that’s 30 years of journals we’re talking about.

I have also written two novels the same way – by writing them a little at a time. I agree that writing 300 pages certainly sounds like a lot; however writing 1 page a day certainly seems manageable. Just think – if you write just one page a day, by the end of the year, you will have written 395 pages – an entire novel.

5 ways to accomplish goals “a little at a time”

  1. Make a promise to yourself that you will do your daily quota – no matter what. Tell yourself that before you go to bed, you must have kept your part of the agreement.
  2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Make sure your daily goal is reasonable. Planning on writing 25 pages a day may not be an attainable goal in the long run.
  3. Put it in writing. For many of us, if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist. Put your daily goals on paper or in electronic format so you can review them later.
  4. Review your list regularly. This is the key in making regular, daily progress on your goals. Post your list where you can see it or send yourself an e-mail reminder to occasionally to review your list. Some people may want to add a daily reminder on their electronic calendars.
  5. Don’t add too many daily “to do’s” on your list. If there are too many goals on your list, you may become frustrated, short on time and end up abandoning your list completely. I recommend including no more than 3 items on your daily “must-do-no-matter-what” list. When one goal is accomplished, add another.

By using the “little at a time” concept, you can easily accomplish your goals – even the big ones.

Using the Ta-Da List

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Young Man imagePhoto courtesy of skidrd

For many years now, I have, like many others, kept a daily to-do list to help me accomplish my daily tasks as well as my long-term goals. This doesn’t mean that I am always able to accomplish everything that’s on my list. On the contrary – more times that I care to admit, I am unable to cross off more than a couple of items. Now in the past, I used to get extremely frustrated with myself for slacking on my to-do list and would constantly beat myself up over my inability to accomplish what I had promised myself I would do. I found that often, being unable to accomplish the things on my to-do list instilled feelings of inadequacy.

Do you do this? Do you feel guilty when you are unable to accomplish everything on your list?

What I think is important to remember – to think about – is not how much we didn’t get done during the day but rather how much we accomplished. Awhile back, I was reading one of Julia Cameron’s books and she mentioned a favorite tool of hers: The “Ta Da List”. How this works, is rather than list out everything we need to get done, the Ta Da List celebrates everything that we accomplish throughout the day.

As I tend to journal at the end of the day, I began to get in the habit of ending my journal with a Ta Da List and I was actually more than surprised at everything that I achieved during the day. I helped me to realize that I was in fact accomplishing quite a bit every day. It also helped me to understand that I am only human and there will be those days where I just can’t quite get around to everything I had intended. People stop by, emergencies pop up, customers demand extra attention – these little things are a part of life and life is about the unexpected.

The Ta Da List not only allows you to celebrate what you have done during the day, but it also helps you to understand where you spend your energy during the day, perhaps pinpointing those little time-wasters in your life.

Here is an example of my Ta Da List so far today:

  1. Did 45 minutes of morning meditation
  2. Took 3 mile walk
  3. Wrote 2 pages of my new book
  4. Wrote out two sections of courseware
  5. Practiced harp for an hour and a half
  6. Began learning a new song on the harp
  7. Did my Spanish lessons
  8. Did two loads of laundry
  9. Did the breakfast and lunch dishes
  10. Had a phone consultation with a client
  11. Emptied out my e-mail inbox
  12. Wrote 3 blog posts
  13. Paid my bills online
  14. Made lunch
  15. Made breakfast
  16. Sorted/discarded the mail
  17. Read the blogs that I subscribe to
  18. Read my Twitter stream
  19. Swept kitchen floor

And there is still more of my day left…

You can also do a Ta Da List for an entire year. This is exactly what I did at the end of last year and when I finished my list, I was elated to discover that I was able to achieve almost all of the goals I had set for myself at the beginning of the year.

The Ta Da list can help you to become more aware of and grateful for what you do accomplish for yourself and for others throughout the day. Since I have started using this tool, I feel much more energized and motivated when I see everything I have done during the day.

So I say, sit back in your chair at the of the day, write out your list, put down your pen and say “Ta Da!”