Make a to-do list? It's on my to do list

April 7, 2017 8:03 AM

Having relatively made the switch to a much busier and more demanding job with a wider remit than before, I am having trouble keeping track of what I need to do. This seems deceptively simple and yet I could do with some pointers on how to effectively keep track of priorities.

The way I am used to working is that I have a list of tasks I need to do and I work through them one by one. That's fine or worked fine in my old job which was much less hectic.

Now, I'll be beavering away at my to-do list, but will sometimes find that I've forgotten to do something because it was buried in a group email that came in a day ago amidst a flurry of other emails that I skim-read. (A LOT of emails get sent around this office, most of which are addressed to multiple people, who then reply-all, so it's easy for information to get lost.) Sometimes I'll be asked to help with something urgently which will itself give birth to dozens of follow-up actions so I'll get buried in that for a day and end up neglecting everything else that was on my actual to-do list.

What this means is that I'm constantly busy but also feel like I'm chipping away at a huge mountain of tasks which will never actually grow any more manageable. I think I would feel far more in control of my work if I had a really effective way of recording every single little thing that pops up that I could then just work through and tick off but my old manual to-do list format isn't up to the task of keeping up with everything that pops up throughout the day. I wonder if this is just what it means to be in a busy job and it's just a matter of getting used to it? But I think I would feel better and more confident if I wasn't constantly realising I'd forgotten to do something.

My boss is aware of the nature of our team's work; he is apologetic for the reactive nature of our workload but can't really promise it'll get better, because as a team we're constantly being bombarded with demands from outside which we can't really say no to, so we're often forced to just respond to whatever is asked for us rather than work proactively on our own projects.

I don't hate the work; I enjoy the challenge and I like being busy, I'd just like to be better at being busy. Some tips on keeping track of a large volume of tasks that come at you from different directions would be amazing - thanks. (I apologise - this seems like a really basic question! But I am really quite stumped.)

posted by Ziggy500 to Work & Money (10 answers total)

Best answer: Give Getting Things Done a try.
posted by zamboni at 8:14 AM on April 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I like ToDoist as an electronic version of a manual to do list. It is simple, but allows you to group things and reorganize on the fly in a way that can be tough with a manual to do list.

You may also need to think about your work differently. You may never get through that to do list, and if you make that your metric for success you'll never feel successful. It might help to reframe success as completing that day's priorities. Keep your comprehensive list, but also think about incoming items in terms of their priority relative to items already on the list. If you get the high priority things handled, that's success. If you aren't sure what is priority, ask your boss.
posted by jeoc at 8:46 AM on April 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I also like the Getting Things Done approach when my life gets chaotic because it helps me keep track of the big picture while also chipping away at the smaller to-dos. OMNIfocus software is based on the GTD model. It works best for me when I am trying to track a bunch of projects and not lose details on the things that are important but not urgent. Probably less helpful if you are in a situation where you know how to make a simple to-do list each morning and can just work from top down.
posted by metahawk at 8:51 AM on April 7, 2017

When I'm in the midst of a flurry of emails, many of which are only incidently related to me, as I skim them, I shove them into a folder called 'not needed'. I set this as a sub-folder to the task at hand. If there's a detail in the email that I know I'll need later, it goes in the main folder. Otherwise, to 'not needed' it goes. I don't like to delete them, in case I missed something in my skimming, but it does get all those 'sounds great' emails out of the way.

Then when I'm ready to focus on that task, I can go through the main folder for it and get all the details at once.
posted by hydra77 at 9:55 AM on April 7, 2017

I'll nth Getting Things Done - I read it a long time ago, and have almost never exactly followed it, but it introduces a lot of useful ideas. The concepts I use most often are ensuring that you have one place where you capture everything you need to keep track of (I use Todoist now, but have used many other things, this is a big potential time sink), and regular reviews - both daily tactical reviews of when to do what today, and less frequent high-level reviews of what's actually important and what to forget about.

Having one place to capture is how you avoid tasks hiding in old emails or lists in a notebook you took to the meeting…

If you use a Mac and iPhones and want to invest a bit, I recommend OmniFocus. When I was all-mac, it was the best tool I used to follow a mostly-GTD workflow. It had unmatched flexibility in how you could set it up to show you only what was important right now, as well as a built-in review mode, that I haven't found anywhere else.
posted by mmc at 10:29 AM on April 7, 2017

I tried GTD and it was too much structure for me, so now I do a personal Kanban. In its simplest form it's just post-it notes on a whiteboard. Being able to jot down whatever and stick it on the board has helped a lot, as well as having it be a physical thing instead of virtual. But that's my ADD talking, so YMMV. There are apps like Trello that you can use, too.
posted by cabingirl at 11:13 AM on April 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Another for the 'roughly GTD' using Todoist. (Especially the 'if something is going to take you less than 2 minutes to do, do it now' part.)

Finding an app that lets me move things around on the fly is key (I'm a librarian, so a lot of my work day is 'work on this thing and then a question comes in', or I have things with hard deadlines (researcher coming in) and some that I don't need to pay attention to again for months (prep for this seasonal task).

The combo of being able to have something remind me without it being firmly attached to a calendar is really helpful, along with the ability to drag and drop things and reorder them for my day easily.

I can't do this at work because of install issues, but for personal email, I use the (I think premium) tool that lets me create a todo from an email and then give it a date/let it sit in my inbox until I sort / etc. (There's an Outlook extension that does something similar.) So really helpful for emails I need to answer sometime, but not immediately. For work emails, I do a really quick note that reminds me of the topic, and drop the email thread in a 'answer this' folder and then move it out to long-term folders when I'm done.
posted by modernhypatia at 12:26 PM on April 7, 2017

I have a very rudimentary system but it works for me. I moved from classroom teaching to doing a stint in academic administration and let me tell you they are different animals. Like you, I have a long to do list every day and there are urgent things, plus long-term things, plus constant interruptions (people, phone) and lots of emails.

My system is extremely low tech. The first thing I did was get a large notebook. The front is for meeting notes; the back is for to-do lists. I make a new to do list every day and transfer anything that didn't get done the previous day to the current day's list. When I'm done I check the item off. I highlight urgent items (top priority) in pink.

I have two key aspects of this system: one, I write down everything I need to do as soon as I find out I need to do it. If I'm in a meeting, I pause and write down the action item on my to-do list. If I'm in a conversation with someone I tell them, "Hang on, I'm going to write that down." I don't trust that I'll remember it after the conversation. If I'm going through my emails, I don't go on to the next email until I have written down the task.

Two: even if I'm going to get to the task immediately, I still write it down. That's because there's a very good chance I'll be interrupted while I'm doing it and I need some way to remind myself to come back to it. And bonus: I like checking off items on my list, so I get the satisfaction of doing that.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:46 PM on April 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

The only downside to my system is I would be screwed if I lost my notebook. But as long as I'm ultra careful, it works for me.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:48 PM on April 7, 2017

Best answer: I wonder if this is just what it means to be in a busy job and it's just a matter of getting used to it?

Kinda. If you pay attention and keep trying new things, drawing inspiration fro the many prioritization and time-management systems out there, you will develop your own productivity system. It takes time.

It's a mindset shift, I think the most important thing to learn when you step up another rung on the ladder is that your work ceases to be linear. It's no longer get task, do task, cross off task. You can't just "work through" your to-do list, because a to-do list for an executive is always double or more times longer than a to-do list for a junior staffer. There is always more you could do, there are medium- and long-term projects, there are key contributions only you can make, and there are also short-term needs - and not everything is equally important. Some things we want to/wish we could do are just not that critical to moving stuff forward. So you just can't have a chronological, linear system govern your choice of what you do each day, and you have to learn to live with never having an empty to-do list and letting go a lot of lower-priority things.

What becomes more important at this level is recognizing priorities. Priorities might be defined by the calendar, by the budget, by your superiors - things are priorities for different reasons, but you'll learn to identify them, and if you start to get confused or feel overwhelmed, ask your boss: among these fifteen things, which are the real priorities? It's their job to help sort that out.

Right now I have a practice of starting each day (BEFORE turning the computer on and looking at email) of writing a short list: Three Things. Three Things are the three things I MUST get done today - the three critical contributions that allow everyone else to move on with their work, that make the important commitments, claim the spot on the calendar, eliminate me as a bottleneck - whatever. It's only three, because three is a good day - especially when you know you are also going to get a thousand other little interruptions and other unpredicted but urgent needs. Keep those three at the top and whenever you get a minute to work, work on the three.

Developing some way of managing email is important, especially in an email-happy workplace. It's ridiculous, but you can't stop the flow. So, right now I have an inbox which instead of being a catch basin is a processing center. If I can reply right away and move it along, I do. If I'm waiting for someone else to do something on it, I move it to a "parked" folder. There are folders for events that happen on specific dates, so when that thing is over I can move the whole folder to archive. A couple times a week, early and late in the week, I troll through what's left in the inbox and through the folders to catch anything I need to be doing or that needs to be moved up to 3 Things.

I also use a Bullet Journal system for everything else in life. I don't really integrate it with work, but it does help life stuff not intrude on work or add to an overwhelmed feeling.
posted by Miko at 8:04 PM on April 7, 2017 [10 favorites]