These days, just about everyone is busy, virtually all of the time.
If you’re not completely snowed under with different deadlines and projects at work, then it’s very likely that you are nonetheless in a position where you find yourself having to juggle a dozen or more personal obligations at any given moment.
Between our obligations to our jobs and our families, in addition to all the personal hobbies that we might want to try out, it can be extremely easy to lose track of things and consequently find that our lives become far more chaotic and disorderly than we would like.
One clear solution to this is using a good and reliable task management system – and there are a huge number of different apps, programs, services, and methodologies that exist today expressly for this purpose.
All the same, there are certain things that are worth considering when you are thinking about the best way to incorporate a task management system into your own life, so that it’s effective and uplifting, rather than just being another source of confusion and irritation.
Here are a few tips for a good task management system.
Make sure that your system features an easy and accessible method for capturing new thoughts and tasks as they occur to you
One of the things about trying to manage your tasks that is likely to be particularly stressful and energy-consuming for everyone, is the simple fact that new tasks, subtasks, and notes relevant to those tasks, are bound to crop up more or less constantly even as you are trying to work through your existing list.
For this reason, one of the best things that any task management system can have embedded in it in order to be effective and helpful, is an accessible and straightforward method for capturing and processing these new tasks without experiencing a backlog, or having them get completely out of hand.
David Allen’s famous Getting Things Done method for task and project management is largely built around its “inbox” system, where new tasks and thoughts are added on the spot as and when they occur to you, and are then sorted through, processed, and either discarded or sent to different existing to-do lists and project categories when you have a spare moment or two.
Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal Method, while not explicitly featuring a “to-do list,” nonetheless makes use of a system where you “dump” your thoughts, incoming to-dos, appointment notes, and other such info into a daily log section, where it can then be easily and intuitively sorted through and handled using the regular routines of the method.
If you don’t have some system for dealing with these incoming items in a streamlined and low-stress way, you’re bound to find that your entire system gets derailed, and that you are constantly carrying around a lot more stress than necessary simply through trying to keep track of all your half-defined thoughts regarding certain topics.
Choose a task management system that is flexible, to save yourself from becoming disheartened
Life is a dynamic thing, and none of us can be entirely sure when we wake up each morning just how the day is going to pan out.
The kinds of task management systems that usually aren’t very robust are those that require a very rigid and unyielding approach, and that involve structuring your days out in meticulous detail.
But what if your task management system involves a highly focused plan for getting through the various items on your to-do list, only for you to then brush up against unforeseen circumstances that completely disrupt the routine of your day, and render the entire plan redundant?
Well, there’s a good likelihood that you will need to abandon the entire system and start fresh, or at the very least, that you will find yourself feeling significantly disheartened and like a failure to one degree or another.
Task management systems like the Bullet Journal Method are built around the concept of flexibility. You can track and manage your tasks without having to “check-in” every day, and without the need for a meticulous and unbroken schedule based around the ethos of pure discipline.
Other task management systems, like Microsoft To Do, allow you to populate a daily to-do list from your existing projects and tasks, based on what you feel up to each morning.
Make good use of different categories in your task management system
There are bound to be all sorts of different dimensions of your life that you need to take care of, via your task management system. For that reason, you should make good use of different categories and should refine your assorted tasks into neat bundles, rather than just having an endless to-do list that drags on forever.
Maybe you’ve just read a great guide like How To Organize Your Kitchen (9 Awesome Tips), and you are determined to get your kitchen in the best condition it’s ever been in. Clearly, the various to-do items in the list should be categorised separately than things like “respond to emails.”
Using a task list that has a good balance of different categories in it is a great way of creating neat compartments in your mind, so that you can avoid feeling needlessly overwhelmed.
Remember that your task management system is meant to reduce stress in your life, not add more
Perhaps above all else, it’s important to remember that your task management system is actually meant to reduce stress in your life, not to just become another source of stress.
If you find that your task management system just becomes one more thing to worry about, and an endless source of frustration, that’s a clear sign that something needs to change and that you should look into adopting a different method, or figuring out how to tailor your existing method to your circumstances in a more reasonable and effective manner.
We all need to keep track of various tasks in our lives so that we don’t forget important things or leave our duties neglected. But tracking metrics and creating structure in our lives can nonetheless be an unhealthy exercise if we get too carried away with the idea of productivity for productivity’s sake.
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