Peace of Mind Organizing

Juggling task-management systems

8 October 2012

I know that somewhere around here I have a list—actually I think it’s more than one list—of potential blog post subjects. The idea is that if I sit down to blog without knowing what I want to blog about, I consult the list, where I capture ideas as they come to me, and voila a blog post presents itself.

Only I’m not sure where the list is. For the past month or so, I’ve been exploring different types of planners and list-making tools, in an effort to find something that helps me, but also to weigh different options to share with my clients.

The result of that is that I my tasks are spread out all over the place. It’s time to carve out a little time on my schedule to give serious consideration to various systems and then pick one to use for myself, so I don’t lose track of everything.

Once I do that, I’ll blog about the various options, so I can share info with you and also point clients to a pertinent blog posts.

Here are the various systems I’ve been playing around with:

Electronic

Workflowy. My friend and collaborator Shannon Wilkinson is crazy about Workflowy, so that’s enough to get me to try it. It’s basically a place to capture tasks in outline form, with the ability to expand or collapse the various subcomponents of the list. I love the easy interface and ease of adding to the list, but am struggling with how to use it when it’s time to sit down and work.

Simpleology. This website asks you to create short-, medium- and long-term goals and refer to those goals every day as you plan your day. I love the idea of it, though so far am finding it all a little too complex. Plus I haven’t figured out how to add tasks as they come up during the day (if I want to do them that day). At the library, I checked out creator Mark Joyner’s book, Simpleology: The Simple Science of Getting What You Want so once I’ve read that perhaps I’ll feel more comfortable with the web interface.

Wunderlist. I’ve been using this online list-making tool and app since I got my iPhone in March. It interfaces well with Mark Forster’s Final Version task management system, but I’ve yet to fully embrace that system and I keep moving to shinier objects.

Paper

Balanced Life Planner from Julie Morgenstern. I just took time-management guru Julie Morgenstern’s time-management class for professional organizers, which prompted me to want to try out the Circa planner she created for Levenger. I love my electronic calendar, however, so I don’t think I’ll be switching to full use of the planner. But I do want to see how it works for task management and be able to recommend it for appropriate paper-based clients.

Productive Flourishing Planners from Charlie Gilkey. This is a bit of an electronic/paper hybrid, since the planners are downloadable, fillable pdfs that you can then print out. Gilkey suggests you print out only as much as you need at a time. They’re designed for creative types who don’t work a typical 9 to 5 job, and I’m anxious to try them out. I tend to like to keep tasks on paper (though my calendar is electronic), so it’s attractive to me. I bought the whole set (Project Planner, Action Planner and Blog Post Planner).

Eight Days a Week Planner Pad from Bob’s Your Uncle. This 11” x 17” paper pad has columns for each day of the week (plus one). I’m going to try it out as a beginning-of-the-week planning tool for getting stuff done. And if it doesn’t work for me, I’ll use the back of the sheets for larger-scale brainstorming.

So that’s what I’m juggling at the moment. I’m still successfully using my To Do List Bingo board for non-urgent tasks I’d like to do daily. I’ll try to post a review of each of these tools after I’ve explored them more.

Tagged with: bingo, charlie gilkey, julie morgenstern, mark forster, shannon wilkinson, simpleology, task list, task management, time management, workflowy, wunderlist

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