Peace of Mind Organizing

Getting back to basics with task management

3 October 2014

Six months ago, I had a great task management system going. I was using Springpad’s Ninja Task Manager notebook to create a running list of tasks and, from that list, selecting three to five priority tasks per day.

Before that, I’d been a paper-and-pen task manager, through and through. I’d always felt that I needed the tactile experience of writing and crossing off tasks. I created a form that allowed me to select my daily tasks and also reminded me of the routine tasks I wanted to accomplish every day. (And I printed the form and had it glued into pads, which was kind of awesome.)

But Springpad was my transition to electronic task management. It really worked for me. I loved that I could have my task list available to be on my computer, tablet and phone, synched seamlessly. I was happy .

Alas, Springpad went belly up in June. That was a really sad day. It got me hooked on electronic task management and I needed to find another solution. All the data I’d saved in Springpad was migrated to Evernote. So now I’m using Evernote for some project management and for keeping track of certain things. But I don’t like it much for task management.

The solution that I’ve come up with that’s working pretty well for me is TeuxDeux. I like that I have the cross-platform synching. And I like that it looks rather like a paper planner—an attractive user interface is really important to me. I did the 30-day free trial and then happily forked over $24 for a year’s use. (I could have opted to pay $3 monthly.)

TeuxDeux allows me to keep track of tasks in two ways. One is by project category. The other is by day. It reminds me of the top and middle sections of the paper Planner Pad I used years ago (it just lacks the calendar). One of the big differences between TeuxDeux and Planner Pad: With TeuxDeux, when I don’t do a task that’s scheduled for a particular day, that task is transferred to the next day.

For me, the way to TeuxDeux effectively is to have a master list divided into categories and look it over weekly or daily and assign certain tasks to the days of the week (like I did with Planner Pad). And that works well. When I do it.

In recent weeks, things have gotten a little out of control and I have not been using TeuxDeux effectively. Instead, I’ve scrawled a task list on paper when I felt the need for one. These lists have not been carefully considered, nor have they suitably short. Nor have they been successful.

So I’m turning back to TeuxDeux with a fresh eye. I’ve moved everything off the daily list and into its proper categories. This week, I’ve been surveying the items on today’s list that were holdovers from the day before and deciding whether I can actually get them done today. Then I’ve been adding items from the categories list that can/need to be done today.

The trick for me is not to overload my daily list. I find that if I have only three to four main things on my daily list (the important things), they’re more likely to get done than if they’re surrounded by a bunch of other tasks.

The other trick for me is to add new tasks as they come up to the appropriate category, rather than the day. (That’s where the system derailed for me before.) This will allow me to be selective about what I plan to accomplish in a given day.

I think TeuxDeux has the power to be a really useful tool for me. This week, I’ve made a real effort to get back to basics (for me, that means regularly going over a master list and selecting just a few tasks per day to focus on). So far, so good.

Tagged with: springpad, task list, teuxdeux, time management

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