Hello dear Builder š Hard to care too deeply about āmanaging your timeā as we inch closer to the third year of a global pandemic, right? Over the holidays my family got COVID. Weāre fine, thankfully, but it brought me right back to March 2020 and sent what little control I had over my time spinning. I thought about sitting on this piece until it felt more timely and relevant but honestly when my life is in chaos mode I tend to fall back on my systems to help me recenter. This piece is about one of my central processes that helps me effectively manage my time (and my to-do list). As they say, how you spend your time is how you spend your life. And as we plan to usher in a new pandemic year, I need a more intentional system to help me keep it together. I hope it helps you. I hope you stay safe and have a healthy 2022!
Late last year at a team offsite, someone asked me how I manage my to-do list. I walked a table full of people through my process, and then made everyone share theirs. Every single person had their own system. There were the 100% digital creatures, relying completely on apps like Todoist alongside their calendar to manage and prioritize their tasks. There was a bullet journaler, keeping a dog-eared notebook and a pile of Muji .38ās to get the job done. For me, personally, Iāve long been in the Getting Things Done camp, using Evernote to keep a weekly and daily priority list to manage my own time.
That exercise, and the variety of each personās method, reminded me that how you manage your own time is an incredibly personal, sometimes sacred process that people develop and iterate on over time. Itās typically not a thing that is taught outright (someone please teach a Time Management 101 college course) but develops organically as people take on and process more information. I actually think this is problematic because thereās a lot of science and thinking out there about cognitive load and how simple task management systems can help your brain be healthier. This isnāt really talked about, but itās important to know for your own sanity. Literally!
As a new year turns over, I personally want to be more intentional with where Iām spending my time this year. Recovering girlboss in me still says yes to way too many things, I do a lot of work for FREE, and it doesnāt always serve me. I also spend way too much time doom scrolling and I need to take back my own time for my own self-preservation. So I thought Iād share my process in the hopes you then share with me yours.
The science
First, THE SCIENCE /me waves magic wand. Did you know that *not* using a trusted system, specifically not writing down tasks and keeping them in your brain is actually bad for your brain? This is especially true for people who manage a lot of information or have to regularly context switch. Thereās this study from 2011 where they were able to show the act of making a list of things to do was as important for the brain as it was to actually do the tasks:
More recently, a study by professors Baumeister and Masicampo from Wake Forest University showed that, while tasks we havenāt done distract us, just making a plan to get them done can free us from this anxiety. The pair observed that people underperform on a task when they are unable to finish a warm-up activity that would usually precede it. However, when participants were allowed to make and note down concrete plans to finish the warm-up activity, performance on the next task substantially improved. As Bechman notes: āSimply writing the tasks down will make you more effective.ā
Furthermore, thereās the cognitive load theory that Deb Liu wrote about recently in her newsletter Perspectives. Cognitive load is the amount of information your memory can hold at one time. Since your memory doesnāt have infinite capacity, you shouldnāt overwhelm it with things that shouldnāt be taking up space (like your mental reminder to buy some more deodorant, should that really be slowing down your brain?!). More here if youāre interested šš»
Enter the system
By creating a process to manage your time, you can get the clutter or load out of your brain and into a trusted system. Iāve been hacking on my own āto-do listā for over ten years at this point. When I started my career as an associate product manager, one thing that immediately broke my brain was the amount of context switching and information management I had to do every day. My single page in a notebook process fell over on day one, and I spent the first year being completely overwhelmed. I had no system.
Thankfully, this was at Etsy in 2011 when everyone was fangirling over Getting Things Done (which was published in 2001 but had become a cult classic by that point). The day someone told me to read it I took the subway straight to The Strand and bought a copy and cracked it open that night. Right away I implemented the overarching framework which is basically this:
Iāve since hacked on that a bit and made my own process a bit simpler, but hereās my TL;DR:
Pick a tool and stick to it. You can still write things down, but make sure you have one centralized pool of tasks that you keep track of. Lots of good tools to help with this. Iāve been using Evernote forever but you could also use Todoist, Notion, Trello, Asana, Google docs, you name it! The key trick here is to have only one system and to be religious about writing down everything you need to do. This tool should house ALL of your tasks. If youāre a parent, tasks related to your kids should be on your central list. On my list right now: Book music class for Ethel š¶š¼ Also on my list because I need some sun after the ārona: Buy a flight somewhere warm šš»
Create high-level categories and add one to each task. This allows you to bucket all tasks based on a specific category. Iām doing some merchandising work right now so I have a āMerchā category that I apply to all tasks related to Merchandising. If youāre a real boss, you can also add context to each of your tasks. For emails you need to send tag it with āEmail,ā for shopping you need to do tag it with āShopping,ā for Google doc writing tag with āDocs.ā You could sort by context and whiz through all your emails without having to aggressively context switch.
Pick a day of the week to do a weekly 30-minute prioritization session. Every Sunday, I copy my OYD template and rough out my priorities for the week. I personally like to do this on Sunday night because it helps me NOT have the Sunday scaries. Sounds counterintuitive but ten minutes of prep helps me not go into Monday as a giant stress ball. Having a system that I count on literally removes most of my stress. Try it, it works wonders! More on Sunday systems from David Hoang here šš»
Each morning create a daily list with your top priorities. On Monday morning, I boot up my list and have my priorities for the day mostly roughed out. At the end of the day, I sketch out Tuesdayās priorities. Iāll look at them when I sign-on, rework them if theyāre not relevant anymore and then I get started. Schedule things into your calendar if possible. This keeps it much more realistic on what you can get done.
Add anything thatās not urgent to your backlog. Anything that comes in during the week I add to my backlog, and will prioritize either in the moment (ie. this is urgent and high-impact so Iāll do it today), or will put it in my backlog to be prioritized later.
Reflect each week on what you did. At the end of the week I do a super quick reflection on what I got done, and what needs to happen next week so my Sunday prep takes no more than fifteen minutes.
Then next week it starts again.
Itās pretty simple, but it allows me to not think too much about what Iām going to do before Iām going to do it. I think about it in the moment when Iām either prioritizing or about to do the work and otherwise let it go. I trust my system and when I get overwhelmed, I know that Iāll pare down my list and be strategic about what to get done when I have the time. Itās oddly comforting and we all need some comforting right now. More on calendars next week.
Do you use any interesting prioritization/productivity methods? Reply to this email and share them with me!
this is super helpful and pragmatic - thank you. the simple questions of 'what is your most important task today and when will you do it?' works wonders.