Does anyone else find that their life (i.e. Filofax) condenses down to a long series of lists?
This is what I am finding more and more as I look through my Filofax.
I have to say, my Filo is the most developed and mature it has been for a while. This is mostly in my 2nd section, 'Organisation', because since I restarted using my Filofaxes around Christmas (after all my planner fail) I have tried hard to get my life sorted inside my Filofax, and the way I naturally do that is to write many lists!. I also stopped splitting things between my filos, for example I had lists in both my personal which I use on a daily basis, and my A5 Purple Malden which I hadn't opened for months!!!, so I decided to put them into my life-in-one-place personal. I also made an effort to get other things down on paper that were floating about in my head, that needed to be written down, in order for me to maintain my sanity!!
I LOVE lists- I think very linearly, so they really help me to get my thoughts on paper. And most importantly, they really work for me!
Here's a list of the lists!! that I have in my filo:
This is what I am finding more and more as I look through my Filofax.
I have to say, my Filo is the most developed and mature it has been for a while. This is mostly in my 2nd section, 'Organisation', because since I restarted using my Filofaxes around Christmas (after all my planner fail) I have tried hard to get my life sorted inside my Filofax, and the way I naturally do that is to write many lists!. I also stopped splitting things between my filos, for example I had lists in both my personal which I use on a daily basis, and my A5 Purple Malden which I hadn't opened for months!!!, so I decided to put them into my life-in-one-place personal. I also made an effort to get other things down on paper that were floating about in my head, that needed to be written down, in order for me to maintain my sanity!!
I LOVE lists- I think very linearly, so they really help me to get my thoughts on paper. And most importantly, they really work for me!
Here's a list of the lists!! that I have in my filo:
- A list of the sort of things I should include in my Organisation section
- My 2013 resolutions
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| Not finished yet |
- A rough list of my 2013 goals (still in progress of deciding what they should be)
- A diagram of how I should break my yearly goals down into weekly tasks (not really a list!)
- A list of my morning routine actions
- My night routine actions
- A list of monthly recurring tasks to help me in planning my monthly actions
- Things to consider putting into my weekly planning in my Plannerisms planner
- A list of things to do when doing my daily 10 minutes of quick tidying in my room
- My master to-do list
- January to February goal of sorting my room out- list of things to do
- A quick list of my projects
- A list of next actions for sorting out my itunes
- A list of things that are currently in process/in progress
- A list of things that I must keep in mind or remember
- A list of things that are currently on my mind (so I can brain dump and not worry about them!)
- Waiting For list
- The ubiquitous shopping list!
- Wish list (things I want but shouldn't buy yet!)
- A list of blog post ideas/posts to do
- Vlogs to do
- My bucket list
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| Definitely a work-in-progress! I'm leaving room for other things |
- Books I want to read
- Recommendations of books from other people
- Favourite books/series/authors
- A list of my favourite TV programmes
- TV programmes to check out
- A list of fun things to do when I am bored
- A list of wages from my old job, to check against my bank balance
- A list of things to do when I go to London!
And then in my Reference section I even have a list of things to consider taking with me when I leave the house, and other stuff like that!
So my life really does condense down to lists!
But I also realise that lists, lists and more lists wouldn't work for me for daily planning. I am the sort of person who stops seeing/reading things when they look boring or the same every day. So if I were just to rely on all of my lists to get me to do what I need to do (such as just looking at my master to-do list for things I should do today), I would ignore them all, and instead do what I want!
I am also the sort of person who needs some sort of time reference for my day. I can easily lose hours of my day by being engrossed in something, not realising where my day has gone, and therefore not getting the stuff done in the time I should have done it in! As I have a linear brain, I find the best tool for me to organise my time is a diary insert with appointment slots. This means that I can visualise my time, when to do the things I need to do, and when I have free time in between those things in which I can do the things I want to do!
I use DPP inserts because although I have a set of 2013 WO2P with appointment slots, there isn't enough space on them, they only go up to 4pm, and they don't have appointment slots for the weekend. The reason I don't use regular WO2P is that I know it would just turn into a day space filled with lists, and no time reference, so it would just turn to mush in my brain!
I do make lists (to-dos) on my DPP, in the right-hand column, but the most important thing for me, to actually make me get things done, is to schedule a time to do them in the appointment slots, or at least in the general time frame (early afternoon, late evening etc).
I sometimes don't stick to these appointment time slots, but at least if I have them written down and visible, it shows me that I don't have all the time in the world to do what I want, and I have to get things done by a certain time today!
I have many lists too. The challenge always is making the list actionable and then actually getting it accomplished! I agree, scheduling your day, even if only roughly, makes an enormous difference. I also find that carefully choosing a fairly short number of highly prioritized tasks which MUST be accomplished each day is much more important than having to refer to a long "to-do" list. I also have found more success in getting things done if I plan out what I will do on a certain day the night before. I then wake up with a plan of action and get to it, as opposed to starting the day wondering what I should do that day.
ReplyDeleteThe other challenge which I face (and I'm sure everyone else too) is the unanticipated urgent task that takes over your day; you find you need to chuck your whole plan which can be quite discouraging. Because this happens quite frequently, I try to build in some wiggle room in my schedule and aim to complete tasks a few days before absolutely necessary, so if something more critical comes up I can still likely meet the deadline.
I've recently written out a list of taks which need to be done at work every week and at the end of each week I look them over along with upcoming deadlines and projects and figure out which days I will "aim" to get the weekly tasks done. I find this really helps me keep up with these tasks which are not urgent but are important to keep everything moving along smoothly and to minimize surprises down the road.
Great post!