A Method to Create Todos
From Zanecorpwiki
For me, the art of "todo" has been about getting very specific todos, but doing so in an organic manner. If I try to sit down and plan everything out, I end up both missing a ton of important stuff and creating lots of tasks for stuff that ends up to be not all that important. On the other hand, if I don't get very specific with each task, and use amorphous tasks like "do housework once a week", I end up spending too much time trying to figure out what kind of housework I can do and never feel satisfied because I wonder whether I chose the right housework or not.
So, here's what I do:
- I start with very generic tasks and repeat them on some frequency. Something like, "take care of finances". Say I can think of 5 accounts off the top of my head that need to be balanced once a month, so I set the frequency every four days.
- When a non-specific task comes up, I think, "Okay, what's the most important thing I have to do that applies to this task which doesn't already have a specific task." In this example, I might see I've got a mortgage to send in. By sending in that mortgage I'll satisfy "take care of finances" for the day.
- Before doing the task, though, I create a specific todo for next time. So, "send in mortgage" gets added to my todo list. I have the mortgage today, so I can use today's date as the due date because if it's here this month by such and such date, odds are that'll be true for next month and so on.
- In four days, "take care of finances" pops up again. But now I've sent in the mortgage, so I can deal with the next most important task.
By repeating this process, eventually you end up capturing everything you need to do on a regular basis very precisely but with no need to guess or waste time trying to plan ahead. Of course, there are some tasks that don't fit neatly into this scheme, but that's okay. You still end up netting a lot of tasks, and there are plenty of other techniques to use to catch the others.
