The first artististic aspiration (just in case you were wondering) was to set up a blog. Week 1 = mission accomplished. So, although it would be easy to try to include this week with that celebration, I know I would feel like I was cheating myself. So here we go with week 2…
I had a hard time this week figuring out which aspiration to tackle next. I could go into detail about how it was the first week back, I was feeling sick, crazy things were happening, but I find these reasons/excuses happen every week. If I accept that I don’t have to finish a task because life is too crazy, I doubt I will ever get anything done again. There is no rest for the driven…
…so with today being my first real chance to get anything done, I sat down to try to redesign some of my website. I soon found there was too much there and one thing led to another until I realized that I was taking on too much for this week. I got overwhelmed.
THEN IT HIT ME… I have no general game plan beyond 52 goals in 52 weeks. That just makes no sense. So I did something I have always wanted to do. I created a digital-to-do list. Now, once you put your sympathy/laughter for me aside, you will see that this can be a practical thing. So here is my take on lists:
1- they can help you to get all of the recurring to-do thoughts onto paper, so hopefully you can stop obsessing over them with the notion you might forget something.
2 – they can help you to organize your thoughts (I blame my teachers who thoroughly beat the idea of outlines into my head. Btw – thank you.)
3- they can act as a springboard for new solutions and ideas.
My list is an excel spreadsheet. The column headings are :
Task – What I want to do
Subtasks – Steps and things I need to do to achieve it
Category – (Website, School, Personal, Marketing, Family, etc.)
Prerequs – Some other task that might be first
Importance (1-10) – Higher number = higher importance
Task Size (1-10) – Higher number = harder to do
Happy ratio – This is the importance minus the task size. Important easy things will end up with a high positive number (perfect for busy, down weeks.)
Date Completed – You should always celebrate what you have achieved to help you do more.
So my digitodo is my second aspiration realized. I can sort it however I want, and now I have some clear things I can see to achieve. I should have no problem this year, as I have managed to type in 96 tasks so far in less than 2 hours.
ADVICE – Make a huge, unorganized to do list on a giant sheet of paper then type it up in a table of some sort.
MORAL – You can’t move forward unless you choose a general direction to move in.
Tags: digital, digitodo, list, organize, thoughts, to do
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