My task lists have become a problem. They’ve been growing steadily, and it is now not unusual for me to have 20+ tasks on the list as I start the morning.

It’s not a sustainable approach. Even though I am knocking a good number of tasks off the list each day, it still keeps growing. There are some days I look at the list and I cannot even fathom where to begin.

Today I will talk about my experiment with open, closed and hybrid task lists and the things I am trying to keep myself working. I’m going to call this Episode 84: Tackling the Task List.

Links from show:

• Boyle’s Law
• Getting Things Done* by David Allen
• Zen to Done* by Leo Baubata
• Do It Tomorrow* by Mark Forster
• Mark Forster’s other time management systems
• Oliver Burkeman’s Imperfectionist Email List
• Time And Attention’s Burnout Episode

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

Getting tasks into any task manager, paper or otherwise, can be tedious. And if you are trying to enter many tasks, it can be hard to do. Today I will show you my method of using a spreadsheet to generate tasks that can be then emailed to my system.

I Use Spreadsheets Mainly For Text

I use spreadsheets a lot in my job. But rarely do I use them to crunch numbers. Instead, I use Excel to help with text.

Sometimes the text needs to be taken apart or otherwise manipulated. Sometimes it needs to be put together in a different format.

All of these things can be done in a spreadsheet. And tasks can be done this way as well.

Know Your Software

The first question you need to answer is whether your task software can accept tasks by email. Some do, some don’t. Remember The Milk does, and it is one of the reasons I use it.

Once you have determined your software does accept emails, you need to find out what the structure of the task needs to be. You can find this by looking in the help files. You will be looking for information on tags, lists, dates and other things that your software provides.

Remember The Milk

Remember the milk allows you to add a due date by ^ followed by the date. So if the task was due on May 4, 2000, the addition to the task name would be ^5/4/2000.

You can add a tag to an RTM task or send it to a specific list by # followed by the name. So if my task was going to my blog list it would have #blog in it. If It was to be tagged for the computer, it would have #computer on it.

Remember the Milk also allows me to mail multiple tasks at once, which is where the spreadsheet comes in.

Demonstration: The Birthdays

Everyone in my husband’s family was born in March and April. In-laws, children, parents, grandparents. My daughter and I are the only two in the family with birthdays outside this span of time.

While it makes shopping easier (because I only have to do it once), it is still a hassle to remember to get things out on time. Everyone gets a card, and the niece and nephews get checks as well. So one stop at Hallmark and I am good to go.

But once I have the cards at home, I need to put tasks in to send them. If I don’t do this, I find that the cards sit until the birthday or later. So I put the spreadsheet to work.

The Initial List

The first thing I did is make a list of all the people and the date of the birthday.

The Mailing Date Calculation

I want to send the card a week before the birthday. So I let Excel do its magic.

You can see by my example that I just subtract 7 (days) from the birthday to get the Send On date.

Adding Modifiers

Some of the cards need to have a check sent with them. I made a column with a $ to indicate this.

Putting Together the Task Text

Next, I use the formulas to put the tasks together.

=IF(D2=””,”Send “, “Write check/send “) & A2 & “‘s card #Family ^” & TEXT(C2,”mm/dd/yyyy”)

• If D2 (Mods) is empty (=””), start the task with “Send” otherwise start the task with “Write check/send “
• Then add the name of the person (& A2 &)
• Then add the text indicating it’s a card (’s card)
• Add this task to the Family list (#Family)
• And make it due on the date in C2 (^ & TEXT(C2,”mm/dd/yyyy”). In order to make the date appear as a date in the final output, I have to convert it to TEXT in the format mm/dd/yyyy

I copy the formula down the column, and there’s the list.

Getting It to Tasks

All that has to be done now is to copy it into an email and send it. Remember the Milk has two email addresses: one for a single task (meant for forwarding a complete email) and one for bulk input. This method of generating tasks uses the bulk input address.

I start a new email, select the address, and then copy the contents of Column E into it. I press send and within 10 minutes I have 13 tasks to help me remember to send the birthday cards on time.

By using Excel, I generate hundreds of tasks a year for RTM. This includes all of my holiday tasks and the tasks from my cleaning grid. I save many hours by using this method and I can keep all of my tasks inside my task manager.

• why a task list won’t make you productive
• how a will-do list can help you overcome overwhelm
• using contexts on closed lists

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

Most people have moments when they see something and think, “I’d like to do that someday.” If you’re not going to forget about it, that means you either have to do it right now or write it down somewhere so you won’t forget. David Allen, in Getting Things Done, recommended having a Someday/Maybe list, where all of these ideas reside.

The problem with any sort of list is that if you keep stuffing things into it, without removing items in turn, it becomes a giant slush pile of un-acted-upon ideas.

As an IT data professional, I can tell you that a system where you only put things in, without the ability or inclination to take it out again, is a failure. If you can’t or won’t get data out of a system, why put it in at all? It’s wasted effort/time/money.

So the ginormous list of things you might want to do, unless you regularly pull things out, is worthless.

My Someday List

Even knowing as I do the dangers of a slush pile, I still fell victim to the endless list. With the first browsers, I started making bookmarks to sites that I wanted to do something with: read later or some other action. And the bookmarks grew so large that I couldn’t find anything.

Then online bookmark managers came to be, and I moved all my bookmarks there. The advantage was that you could tag these bookmarks. This made it easier to find things. But I rarely did.

Then I went through my bookmark manager at one point, realizing I had thousands of bookmarks reaching back years. And about 50% of them pointed to sites that were no longer up and functioning. So I weeded out, and moved the things I still wanted to do over to Evernote.

So even though I now had the site contents saved, solving the problem of defunct websites, and I had tags, solving the problem of not finding things, I still had a giant list. I needed to solve the problem of pulling things out.

How I Manage My Somedays in Evernote

I have a fairly straightforward process for managing my Someday list in Evernote.

My Tools

There are two tools used to make this work:

• Evernote. This is where the list resides until I am ready to take action on the items
• Remember The Milk. This is my task manager, and has the wonderful feature of being able to link with Evernote with a single click in Evernote. Click on the Reminder in Evernote, and the task gets added to Remember The Milk.

The Input Process

As I described in a previous article [Insert Link], I save things into Evernote into a default notebook (Inbox) with no tags. Once a week, I go through everything in that notebook, put on tags, and then move it to the appropriate notebook.

To describe this a litter further: for each item, I scan it, and decided if it is an item for reference (like how to replace the battery in my car fob) or if I want to take any action on it (like a blanket pattern).

If the item needs action, I add the tag “.someday” to the other tags before.

If the item is something I am going to act on right away, I will also add the tag “.now” and click the reminder icon to send it to Remember The Milk.

Only then do I change the notebook where the note is stored.

But not everything is actionable right now. So I developed a 1-month process to make sure I am looking at those items regularly.

The Review Process

Once a month (it is a recurring task in Remember The Milk), I go through my .Someday items in Evernote. I have three saved searches to help me do this.

1. Review .Now without a Reminder. (Search: tag:.now -reminderOrder:*) For those items tagged “.now” without a reminder, this means that the task was completed or deleted in Remember The Milk. I go through each of these items. If they have been completed, I add the tag “completed”, and remove “.now” and “.someday”. If I really don’t need the note anymore, I will delete it.
2. Review .Now with a Reminder. (Search: tag:.now reminderOrder:*) These are the items that were sent over to Remember the Milk and not completed. As I look through this list, I ask myself why this was the case. Was it not something I really wanted to do? (I have an issue with should items) Was it just not the right time? Did I overload myself, thinking I had more time than I did? Do I just really not want to do it? I evaluate again to see if each of these items should be deleted, removed from the .Someday list or just removed from .Now.
3. Review .Somedays that are not .Now (Search: tag:.someday -tag:.now) Next I go through those items that may be able to be moved to “.now”. When I do this, I click the reminder icon to send it to Remember The Milk, as well as add “.now” to the tags.

Conclusion

With this system in place, I am regularly reviewing those items on my Someday list and putting them in a place where they get done. That’s not to say I’m making huge headway into the list, but at least it’s something.

How do you manage Somedays so they don’t end up in a big slush pile? Share below.

Have you ever been going over your task list and come to a screeching halt? Did you stumble over the task because your brain didn’t know what to do with it? Properly naming tasks is one way to keep that from happening.

I am not very good at naming tasks. Even after years of doing Getting Things Done and absorbing productivity information, all which emphasize to keep tasks do-able. So here is how – and why – you need to properly name tasks.

Poorly Named Tasks = Avoidance

If you see a poorly named task on a list, your brain will either trip over it and then move on, or just skip it all together.

Let’s look at some examples from my recent lists.

• “Camper.” Was this winterize? Clean? Take out for a spin? Even winterize and clean have multiple different possibilities.
• “Salad.” Make? Eat? Throw out? Throw on the floor?
• “Watch show on science thing.” Sadly, I didn’t write down which show, or the topic, or the presenter, and I had no idea later.
• “Garden.” Is this a noun or a verb? Did I need to clean? Plant? Harvest? Fertilize?
• “Shopping list.” Do I make one? Order groceries?
• “Blog articles.” There is so much to be done on this one, that I can’t even start to list it all.

Properly Named Task = Good Time Estimate

If you have properly named a task, and added tasks for subsequent actions, you can understand how long it will take you to complete.

Looking at the list above, I cannot honestly give even a guess as to how long things would take.

The Structure of Proper Names

Putting together a properly named task isn’t hard. All you have to do is train yourself to do it.

The proper structure is [verb] [noun] [completion state]

Examples

Let’s take a look at my mess above.

• “Camper” was actually a series of tasks: “Winterize camper by removing all food.” (30 minutes) “Wash and store camper linens.” (30 minutes) “Buy antifreeze for camper water lines” (60 minutes) “Put antifreeze in camper water lines.” (30 minutes)
• “Salad” was about making a big salad that I could take all week for lunch: “Make 5 salads for work lunches” (20 minutes)
• “Watch show on science thing.” Lesson learned – be more specific when writing down a task.
• “Garden” was actually “Clean and store tomato cages” (15 minutes)
• “Shopping List” was “Make shopping list” (10 minutes) followed by “Order groceries” (15 minutes)
• “Blog articles” was too broad. It needed to be “Write article for [date]” (45 minutes) three times.

Conclusion

By properly naming tasks, you can keep your mind from stumbling over them, and get a clear picture of how long a task will take.

Action Item

Look at all your tasks on your task list. Are they named properly? Do you know exactly what needs to be done and have a feel for how long it will take?

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

To get more done, you need to do more things. That’s self-evident. But what if I told you the secret to getting more done was limiting your tasks?

I am one of those people, who, when faced with a huge list of things to do, will shut down and do none of it. It’s not uncommon. Most people, faced with a pile of work where they don’t know where to begin, will not being at all.

So how do you get past that? Read on.

List Overwhelm

List overwhelm happens when you have a massive task list. One with more tasks on it than you could possibly do in a day, or two or three. Perhaps even a week.

It happens because modern task management systems don’t take into account life (See Managing Personal Tasks). Most of us don’t have the luxury of handing our tasks over to a staff, and our lists just grow and grow.

So if you keep everything in one place (which is good, so you have a complete picture) and you write everything down (which is good, because it keeps you from re-thinking), you end up with a massive list.

Arbitrary Deadlines Make It Worse

The first thing people try to do is set deadlines on tasks. They see when they can fit the tasks in, and start scheduling. I’ve done it myself (see How To Time Block) And sometimes that works, especially if you are trying to get past the mindset that you have no time to do anything.

However, if you are faced with an Everest task list, this strategy can backfire. Deadlines and time blocking are for sprinting – you get a lot done quickly. But sprinting is not a sustainable pace. Do it too long and you won’t want to do anything because you’ll have collapsed wheezing.

Setting arbitrary deadlines on your tasks in the long run just contribute to the feeling of overwhelm. It’s never good to set a due date for something that isn’t truly good just because you intend to do it. We all know what they say about intentions and the road to hell….

The Danger of MITs

There are several schools of thought out there that say you should pick your three Most Important Tasks (MITs) and do those before anything else. You don’t have to do anything else other than those tasks – you can stop.

I have two problems with this: the first is that those of us who work for others don’t have the control of our schedules to do this; the second is that three isn’t enough when you have a mountain.

Let’s deal with the second objective first. You can make progress on your task list if you do three things every day, but the truth is that things get added faster than that. So if you stop after three, you still have a mountain waiting to climb, and it’s growing.

Now the first one: do it before anything else. OK, but if you have to work? They respond that you should do them first when you get home. OK, but when you get home the kids need help with their homework, the dog needs to be fed, and dinner has to be started. They respond you should do them before anything else. So that leads me to believe that homework and feeding the family, while very important, isn’t going to help you tackle the task Kilimanjaro.

Having tasks compete for your attention to become one of the three is too limiting. Also, you need to be conscious of your list at all times and be able to flex to do what you can when you can.

Limiting Tasks For Better Control

Let’s talk about how to limit tasks – flexibly – for better control, to avoid overwhelm and still make progress.

Check Your Available Time

You have to know what your time schedule looks like before you can realistically choose tasks for the day. If you have a day where you are working, followed by a session at the gym, and you have a PTA meeting in the evening after dinner, don’t expect to get much done. If you have no meetings in the evening, and no one requires your services as maid/chauffeur/cook, you will be able to get more done.

So figure out what your time blocks are. Be realistic. Know how much time you can give to tasks based on your schedule.

Start With Those Actually Due

Next, look at what is actually due that day. Not arbitrarily due because you’ve imposed a deadline on yourself, but that have an externally-set deadline. Write these down.

Can you get them all done? Yes? Great!

Oh, wait, you said no? Well, then either you are going to have to move things in your schedule to free up more time, or not do some of the tasks or find another way to get the task done. This can include delegating it to someone, or purchasing an item instead of putting in the time. Whatever you do, consider this carefully….cutting sleep doesn’t really work in the short term or long term.

Pick A Few

Now, let’s talk about if you have some time left over. Don’t go for the whole list. Remember, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. Pick things you know you can get done.

If you have tasks grouped by location (See Managing Personal Tasks), try to knock a bunch of those out at once. If you have things that can help you get ahead for the coming week, choose those, especially if those days are tight on time.

Final Note

Don’t worry about limiting your tasks. You’ll get more done than you think, and if you find yourself in the (enviable) situation of having time and your task list is complete, you can always choose to pick more! (Or you can sit back and relax, too!)

Conclusion

Limiting your tasks to the time you have available will help you get more done than being overwhelmed by the whole list or by picking three to do.

Action Item

Try the method above for one week and see if you get more done, or if you feel less overwhelmed.

Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash

Few people would say that work and life are the same. Yet we try to apply work task management techniques to the rest of our lives, and are frustrated when it doesn’t work.

I have very little problem staying on task at work. I have multiple priorities and multiple projects, and yet I consistently meet my deadlines. I began to wonder why I had problems at home, and so I started to read books on task management and to-do lists, hoping to find the answer. Instead, I had an epiphany.

Differences Between Work and Home

It occurred to me halfway through the third book that the focus of each of the books was on work. Things like how to prioritize your tasks, how to avoid empty meetings, how to set aside good working time were all addressed. And don’t get me wrong…these are important things! But they don’t apply at home. So what is the difference between work and home and how does it affect tasks?

Work has context

Work tasks have context. It is very easy to see when considering tasks. Let’s say your current focus is to produce TPS reports. If a task comes along, say to clean fish, you would recognize that it has nothing to do with TPS reports. Work has very clearly defined context parameters to help you focus on tasks.

Each context supports a higher purpose: to earn money for the business. If an activity doesn’t support that, it will either go away or become a drag on resources.

Work has job function/delegation

Work has clearly defined roles. If you work for the accounting department, you don’t have to worry about backing up the database servers. If you work in a teller position in a bank, you don’t have to worry about expense reports at the main office. By the very definition of a job, your tasks are automatically limited to those within the job function…”other tasks as assigned” not withstanding.

We can tell what tasks belong to our job function, and which tasks need to be handled by someone else. What does not belong to us can be sent to the person with the expertise to do it.

Home has no boundaries

Our non-work lives require a breadth of activities you would never see at work. There are very few limits on what we can take on, thereby expanding our possible context to an astronomical number. You want to train for a marathon? Go ahead. Write the great American novel? Have at it. Alphabetize your spices? Knock yourself out.

The contexts that we have at work vanish in our personal lives, simply because there is no underlying principle. You can attempt what you wish because there is no other goal at work other than to “live your life.” Which is pretty broad.

Home has no defined job functions

Once you are out on your own, you wear all hats. You may find yourself being a housekeeper as you scrub your toilets; launderer as you fold your clothes; chef as you cook your dinner; landscaper as you mow your lawn; accountant as you pay your bills; and so on. This is in addition to the roles you play as a person: spouse, parent, pet owner, child, friend, volunteer and dozens of other labels that encapsulate person-to-person relationships.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you know how to do these things. You can hire expert assistance, but even if you hire these out, you still have the job of managing the person doing the task.

Tasks, at home, are never neatly defined, since we have to wear all the hats all the time.

Home can’t ignore indefinitely

Let’s talk about the dirty little secret of workplaces: that list of tasks that is always low priority and never gets done in the face of more important tasks. Eventually those tasks are just removed or picked up on the next month or quarter. Or given to the new guy.

At home we don’t have that luxury. We can’t skip doing laundry indefinitely. We can’t ignore the dirty dishes in the sink or the overflowing trash. Even though these things are not important in the scheme of “live your life,” ignoring them just makes a bigger mess.

Managing Home Tasks

So what can we do? Having recognized that work and home produce very different sets of contexts, roles and tasks, we have to treat the home tasks in a different manner from the work ones.

Create A Master List

In order to effectively manage home tasks, you need to know what these all are. The best way is to have a list of all the tasks you would do at home.

There are two types of tasks: stand-alone and repeating.

Stand-alone (or as I call them, “one-offs”) are things that are done once or not done on a fixed schedule. This could include calling the charity shop for a pickup or painting the bathroom or making cupcakes for the Valentine’s class party. For these types of tasks, you need to note if there is a due date.

Repeating tasks are those that should be done regularly. Putting the trash on the curb on pickup day is an example of this.

There are other tasks that become easier if they are performed regularly. Most housework falls into this category…it is easier to clean a week’s worth of soap scum off of a shower rather than a month’s worth, for example.

Each repeating task should note how often it gets repeated, as well as a due date if it has one; if not, add range of time when it should be done next.

Creating a Sublist

The next thing to decide is what you are going to accomplish in a week. Pull all the repeating tasks that need to be done this week, and then add in some of the one-off tasks (especially if they are due!).

How do you know what to put on the list? Look at where the task needs to be done, and the time it will take.

Let’s say you have a task to return your library books. You also have a task to drop off batteries for recycling at the collection point at the library. The library task has a due date; the battery task does not. However, they are at the same place, so even though you could put off the battery drop, why not knock it off your list since you’re going to the library anyway?

Another way to pick tasks for the sublist from the master is by the time they will take. This will mean you have some idea of what free time you have during a given day or week. On those weeks where you have larger chunks of free time, you can pick tasks that take longer. Or if you only have a ten minute gap, you could add in sweeping the kitchen floor.

So in order to make the most of what you are doing, you will need to know both where a task will take place, and the time you estimate it will take.

Planning Beyond the Day

Most task management systems recommend that you either have tasks in a backlog or on your current day’s list. If you place personal tasks on the backlog, they will disappear under the fog of the more important or urgent tasks. If you place the tasks on your current day’s list, you will overwhelm yourself with the amount on your daily list.

Instead, make a list of everything you would like to get accomplished in the next week and keep it near you as you work through your day. If you finish your daily tasks, pick things off the weekly list to work on.

Setting Up Your Day

So when it comes time to write out your task list, you will have a set of personal tasks.

Those that have to be done today, add to your list. You will have determined those with due dates when you made your master list. These will be both one-off and repeating tasks.

Next, keep a list of the tasks to be done this week nearby. As you finish your tasks with due dates, see if there are any that appeal on the weekly list.

What To Do About Leftover Tasks?

So you may be wondering about how to handle that bunch of tasks you didn’t get to during the week?

I recommend a “pick up the slack” day. That means I give up one of my weekend days and knock everything out.

This has two benefits: the first, which is that during a slack day, I get it all done. The second, is that I will make more of an effort to get everything done during the week if I know I have to give up a weekend day if I don’t.

Conclusion

Personal tasks require a different handling than work tasks. Making a master list of stand-along and repeating tasks, scheduling those with due dates and working from a list of those without dates, and then having a slack day will allow you to get a grip on this different task beast.

Action Item

I challenge you to try this method for your personal tasks this week. On Saturday, determine whether or not it was effective for you.

Picture by Unsplash/FuYong Hua