Task Management Tips

Check out this video I created to respond to a question about organizing task lists. Whether or not you use to-do lists, I'm sure you've found yourself with a lot on your plate at some point, and every now and then you forget things. It's normal. I do it too sometimes.

So, what do you think? Based on my organizational experience (and occasional human spurts of therapeutic disorganization) will I recommend that you write it all down? Hmmm, let's see...

To be fair, sometimes we all need to write things down. Actually I can think of some very specific times that task lists come in handy. They are as follows:

• When you have a list of people to call
• When you have a list of people to email
• When you have seriously fallen behind
• When you are managing an extra complicated or important project
  
• When there is a big job to do that seems unmanageable
• When you have more than two errands to run

So if you just read through all those bullet points, you may have noticed I am only recommending that you use task lists when everything on the list belongs to the same general category. Lists get dangerous when there are too many different types of things on them. It becomes next to impossible to accomplish everything on a list within a reasonable window of time when one item takes three seconds online, another has you driving across town to find the only light bulb that will fit into that antique lamp, and a third has you planning a vacation.

I admit that I create to-do lists for clients on a regular basis. I devise categories to divide each list into sub-lists based on what I know about the client in question. For one client I divide the list into tasks related to scheduling, finances, creativity, and parenting. She finds this extremely helpful. I bet you will too. But please, please give the to-do list free lifestyle a try. I am sincerely loving it.