Peace of Mind Organizing

Keeping the important top of mind

28 October 2016

It’s so easy to focus on urgent tasks, rather than important ones, isn’t it?. Every day I create a list of tasks I want to accomplish that day. (When I’m on my game, I do it the night before.) I try to keep the list short so I have a fighting chance of actually accomplishing all of them.

That approach often results in a short list of items that are calendar-driven. Sometimes they’re important, but often they’re simply urgent. One day last week, I emptied my brain of the urgent tasks and realized none of the items were particularly important. Then, when I put my mind to it, I remembered some projects that were languishing. It was a reminder that it’s important to consider the important-but-not-urgent tasks when I’m putting together my task list.

Considering those tasks when you’re figuring out what to do next can help you be successful. When you work on important projects in bites, over time, you can take more thoughtful action, rather than always rushing to get something done. It can decrease stress. Eventually, if you’re successful at staying on top of important tasks, you’ll have fewer urgent tasks populating your to-do list. And that’s a nice way to live, in my opinion.

So how can you keep the important projects and tasks top of mind? For some people, it starts with setting goals. If you set goals, the important tasks become more obvious, because they’re in service of the goals. You can keep a list of your goals or projects in front of you (on a bulletin board, for example) or use reminders on your phone or computer to bring them top of mind. You can create a paper or electronic list of important projects and break the projects into tasks, then schedule the tasks. For many people, interim deadlines are really helpful.

There’s no one right way to do it; I encourage you to experiment with different methods.

One thing that can be very beneficial is to schedule time in your week or month to ruminate. Think about how things are going and how they might improve. If you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, for instance, think about what you’d do if you could hop off the hamster wheel. Then think about how you could make that happen. Brainstorm with yourself using whatever tools feel right. For example, I keep track of tasks in my computer, but I like to brainstorm with pen and paper, often using mind maps.

One way I ruminate is to schedule monthly floats in a flotation tank. While I’m floating I get great insights and sometimes I remember important projects that had fallen by the wayside. I always take along my float journal so I can jot down the ideas that come to me. And periodically I review my float journal.

How do you keep track of your important projects and tasks?

Tagged with: productivity, task list, task management, time management

Comments