{"id":287,"date":"2007-04-22T19:04:58","date_gmt":"2007-04-22T23:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sarahdopp.com\/blog\/?p=287"},"modified":"2007-04-22T19:06:40","modified_gmt":"2007-04-22T23:06:40","slug":"how-i-know-what-i-need-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahdopp.com\/blog\/2007\/how-i-know-what-i-need-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Know What I Need to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"
Heads up, this content is 19 years old. Please keep its age in mind while reading.<\/div>

Lifehacker has a great discussion today on Paper versus Electronic To-Do Lists<\/a> — the pros and cons of each. Ultimately, they make a stronger argument for paper, and I can’t disagree. I still haven’t found the perfect set of solutions, though — my to-do system remains a personalized hybrid of several recommendations and fixes. The benefit is that it’s molded to fit me; the downside is that there are always holes, and it requires discipline to maintain. Here’s what’s working for me right now:<\/p>\n

The Whiteboard<\/strong> (aka My Baby) – I have a massive 3′ x 4′ whiteboard on the wall in my home office (aka my living room). It is the central bucket for quick thoughts. Because it is limited in size and super-easy to use, it’s the most likely bucket in my life to get processed thoroughly. I want it clear for me to add to, so I’m always pushing its content forward to where it really belongs.<\/p>\n

The Other Whiteboard <\/strong>– Next to My Baby, I have a second, smaller white board (1.5′ x 2′), which sits right above my desk. It’s too small for brainstorming, but it’s perfect for defined to-do lists. When I sit down at my computer to crank out tasks, the first thing I do is list them out on the board in the order I want to get them done. I also leave a margin on the right for adding other tasks as they come up while I’m working. (Note: if I’m not working at home, I replace this either with a piece of paper or a plain text file. They do the job, but they’re not as slick.)<\/p>\n

The Treo<\/strong> (aka My PDA Phone) – I’ve found that I rarely look at my Treo when I’m working, so it’s not<\/em> a good place for me to record work tasks. It is<\/em>, however, a great place to keep shopping lists, since the machine is always with me when I’m out. I use the other to-do categories to record non-critical tasks that I can forget about for a few weeks if necessary — usually creative problem-solving ideas. If I really need to remember to do something and all I have on me is the Treo, I’ll either email the task to myself or attach an alarm to it. I also use the alarm system to remember non-work-related events.<\/p>\n

The Date Book<\/strong> – I carry a thick Moleskin notebook calendar with me whenever I’m working. It has a separate page for each day, and I use it to keep track of the Big Picture. I log my goals, major tasks, and hours worked. The first thing I do on Monday morning is review what I did last week and make a master list of big things I want to accomplish this week. Then I break that list down and spread it out over the days. The first thing I do every<\/em> morning is look at what’s queued up for the day and revise it to fit my latest plan. The last thing I do before I quit work each day is record what I actually did. I could do this in any notebook, really; the benefit of using a calendar is just that it’s archived for reviewing later. I prefer paper to electronic here because I can leave it open on my desk, and I can work on it while I’m on the train.<\/p>\n

The Inbox<\/strong> – I use Thunderbird to manage most of my email (my big client-specific email accounts are kept separate in Entourage). I automatically filter the inbox down into four categories:<\/p>\n