Tool #2 – Task Lists

The second tool I use as a regular part of my information workers toolbox is task lists and for a very long time I used them for one reason and that was to get some peace of mind.

I wasn’t totally conscious of what I was doing but whenever I felt overwhelmed or out of control, I would eventually make a list of all the things I had on my mind. The end result was I got to see that there was  not as many issues as I had imagined and they didn’t look quite so bad after all (most of the time).

Making a list gave my brain a break from continuously looping these thoughts one after the other to make sure I didn’t forget them. Once the things where safely down on paper I was free to let my mind start doing other things with the reassurance that I could always go back and refer to my list if I needed to. Although in practice  I might refer to them once or twice after I wrote them they would soon be discarded with their job done.

So making a list made me feel better and more in control without really doing anything.  In his book “Getting Things Done” which is the recommended reference for this type of thing, Steve Allen mentions that the human brain is not designed to store lots of lists. The key thing here is that your brain IS capable of storing lists but not without a lot of effort and concentration. So going about your normal day with a list of things to do on your mind is using a lot of your available brain power and making you less effective at whatever else you need to do. The act of storing your list of concerns outside of your brain invariably a mental release. It makes you feel better and in effect smarter.

While the most basic benefit of using a task list is this peace of mind, the benefits are pretty short lived if you don’t actually do anything about the tasks. Writing the list out again with the same items usually does not have the same effect.  The serious stuff starts when you develop a habit of returning to your task list to update it with changes. Changes like marking a completed task or adding a new one or updating an old task with a new description because you misunderstood it the first time round. This is where your lists become less about calming frayed nerves start making a significant difference to your productivity and effectiveness. No matter what the format, recording the tasks you need to do, no matter how trivial, then working to complete the task in whatever order is make s huge difference. You get a sense of progress and completion that feeds your energy and motivation to continue.  Once you have developed this habit you can start looking at more complicated issues like prioritisation which is a whole other thing.

In the first office I worked in, the personal assistant of my manger used an exercise book for her task list and as each job was done she would rule a line through it from edge to edge.  When you asked her for something she would never do it straight away but instead but she would record it in her book and get back to what she was doing. At first it was annoying that she would not drop everything to help you but she always delivered without fail. To this day she is my benchmark for effective and habitual use of task lists.

I don’t claim to have developed a strong habit with my task management routine. It still find myself forgetting to keep it up to date but I have never abandoned the system. I have also developed some bad habits like writing poorly defined tasks that are really issues rather than discreet actions. Like “ Why is the business case is late” or “What are Lisa’s concerns regarding the plan”  I usually end up deleting these. A task that lives on the list for a long time is probably not important or not a real task. If you find yourself in a situation where your task list has become long term storage for things your are not going to do or not sure how to do then pretty soon it will become another source of stress.

The exercise book that the personal assistant used was her trusted system and the essential elements are exactly the same in the digital world. (i.e.You record tasks then mark them as complete when you are done). Paper has always had the edge over computers because it’s completely portable and easy to update. Personal Digital Assistants came along and were portable but painful to use. Things are changing now with touch interfaces and synchronisation and there are lots of different task management applications available.

In my opinion there is a very low level of functionality required to make a good task list application and virtually anything will do the job. Even a basic text editor is effective. It just needs to be with you all the time and be easy to update. The lower the barriers are the more likely you are to use it repeatedly.

While I total stand by the previous statement, my trusted system is OmniFocus by the Omni group and it might be the most complicated personal task management software available on the market. Since it is only available on Apple hardware, it is probably the most expensive too.  I bought it while I was still thinking that productivity software would magically transform my life but  it happened to be the one I was using when I realised that its not the software but the discipline that matters.

That is probably the most important point I wanted to make here.  If you find your self thinking that new task management software is going to turn your life around because of a shiny new interface or syncing capability then you are probably mistaken.  You need to have developed the habit of writing down every task you need to do and continually referring to it before productivity software become useful as a tool.  Otherwise, downloading new task list software just an expensive way of getting the temporary peace of mind we spoke about at the start. If that’s what you want then a piece of paper is much cheaper.