Task Log

Musings from a productivity nerds’ diary.

In the internet you will find for and against arguments for everything. that is what fascinates me. Productivity world is not immune to this. There are arguments for goals and arguments for anti-goals. There are arguments for to-do list and there are vehement opposition for to-do lists. 🤷‍♀️

I relish the arguments on both sides and finally take what matters based on my sensibilities.

To-do lists are awesome. They help you collect and categorize your tasks and projects. A to-do list allows you get everything out of your head and put down in a log. This way nothing falls through the cracks. The Birds Eye view of biggest priorities is a bonus.

Here are some learnings and reflections of tweaking a to-do list for decades.

1. Capture every task that comes to you in a list.
2. Typically every task belongs to a project or the task itself is given as a project. So classify the task as a mini/micro/macro/mega project. Eg: let’s do a design sprint. This is not a task. It is a project that runs for weeks together.
   Tasks getter batched better under a project and this is the step we usually don’t do in a to do list.
3. Allocate areas for the project. They could be personal-home, personal-kids, office-xyz, office-abc. It helps you figure out the area that generates tasks for you in a given period.
4. Assign priorities against the projects. I use a simple critical/high/medium/low scale for this.
5. Assign urgency to it. Again, the same high/medium/low scale is used.
   
   I do only projects that are high/critical priority AND urgent. Everything else can wait. You can only fo so much in a day. So don’t hesitate to say NO. I review my task log aka to do list every Saturday to see if anything is slipping through the cracks that week and use a buffer of 2 hours to finish tasks. This way every week has a closure and a new week starts afresh.
   
   I experimented with every day, every week, a fortnight, twice a week and a month. The sweet spot for me is every week. You find what works for you.

🥂 to task logs!