Questions and humor

[drwex]

I'm in a completely vapid mood today, so I'm posting more drivel. I'm not even going to promise a contentful post - I can't get the tangle of thoughts to organize linearly enough.

Questions:
- Do you write to-do lists for yourself?

- Do you use them? In the way you intended them to be used?

And for all of you people who had to deal with HP spoiler griefing, today's Punch an' Pie is for you.

Comments

To-Don't

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I have been completely unsuccessful at "to-do" lists the several times in my career that I've tried to use them. The general pattern is that I get them started, keep them up less and less well for about a week, and then gradually forget that they exist at all.

Among my mother's compulsions, she kept stacks of notecards to create lists at all times. My aversion may be a reaction to that, and may be just as compulsive as her need to create them.

Too obvious

[mizarchivist]

Your question made me want to be another Laurie Anderson clone.

Re: lungs- Given that it's only been going on since Tuesday, I've not really made a scientific study of this. And in general I'd not planned to push this issue at all. I expect it to be a temporary condition.

Yeah, well...

[tigira.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those women who try to do too much. Without lists, I couldn't possibly remember everything.

I usually write out a week in advance. At the top of each day are the things that MUST get done in order for life to move smoothly in the household. After that, anything that gets done is gravy.

When I get frantic and stressed about not getting everything done is usually when I've not written to-do lists for a while.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I make lists when I'm feeling especially overwhelmed, and there's a little reward in crossing things off them. I probably would benefit from being more consistent about it.

Plug

[marius23.livejournal.com]

I mostly use Life Balance (http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/LifeBalanceTop.html).

For certain semi-recurring activities, e.g. packing for certain events, I make checklists in ThoughtManager (http://www.handshigh.com/html/thoughtmanager.html).

I will sometimes resort to paper if I have a really busy day with lots of small-but-necessary tasks that all must be done that day.

P.S.

[marius23.livejournal.com]

I've been using some version of Life Balance (it was first written for the Apple Newton) since 1995.

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

I only use to-do lists at work. And no amount of fancy computer calendar nonsense has been as effective as a notebook.
I write anything and everything I need to do on a page the notebook. I don't try to organize it or put it in any order or change pages every day or any of that. I put a little asterisk next to something that's a "today" kind of thing, that's about it.
I cross things off as they get done.
Once as sheet of paper is full (one column only, the other column/half of the sheet being for jotting down notes and/or phone numbers, etc.) I flip the page and transpose anything that wasn't crossed off from the full page to the empty one.
I keep the pages, especially those with phone numbers jotted on them.

[rintrahroars.livejournal.com]

I use lists for the small picture clutter that would make my brain short circuit. For instance, when organizing a trip or preparing for a special occasion, I will produce incredibly OC to-do lists, getting into the minutia, even, of menus, ingredients, shopping lists, things to do, etc. As for the medium, my best events/trips live in small spiral-bound notebooks that fit in my purse.

I DO use these lists as intended. And sometimes, just the WRITING IT DOWN puts it in my head. I may not even need the actual lists.

Big picture stuff tries to get into my Day Planner, or at least onto Google Calendar, but I fail miserably at mega-organizing the big stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I make to-do lists in iCal for work, and I use them as intended. I don't usually include personal items in the list, unless I am trying to remember to do something specific (like schedule a doctor's appointment) during work hours.

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

That was me. Sorry.

[catya.livejournal.com]

Yep. :) (duh)

[ciani.livejournal.com]

I write to do lists at work. Sometimes they include things to do at home, but since I live alone with just Min it's a lot easier not to need to do lists for home activities.

When I write a to do list I use it. I cross off each item as it's completed or use it to re-prioritize a list of tasks. If a task has an attached list (such as grocery shopping) that's usually on the back of the original todo list.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I use to-do lists because if I didn't I would lose track of what I wanted to do.

My to-do lists are full of different types of items, which I do classify in mmy brain -- I have "micro" items -- things that take 5 minutes, but I might easily forget, like "order a book" or "RSVP for that event" or "look up where the olympics are being held in 2010" or "find out more info about [product]".

Then there are the mini to-do lists, things that take a few hours, like "clean the living room", "upload pictures from 2003", etc.

And of course there are the larger to-dos that are more like calendar events, appointments, weekend visits, etc.

I keep mostly one to-do list, and my inbox which acts as another to-do list. Recently I've been using twitter to help cull down my micro to-do things like "post to lj about random comment". Which never even got written down, they were mental to-dos.

Is there a way to "misuse" a to-do list though ? The question of "did you use them as intended" confuses me, I'd think the question is "did you use them?" I'm curious as to why you asked the question that way.

[drwex]

Some people use to-do lists only retrospectively - how do "what I did" and "what I thought I ought to do" match up?

Some people use them as bird-cage liner.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

*nod* the former I get, the latter falls under "don't use the list".

[okelle.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I also divide them up into daily lists, usually of no more than four. Sometimes I have to remember to put fun stuff on them instead of just boring grown-up tasks.

As motivation, I like to put a sticker on them when I'm done.

Stop looking at me like that ;-)

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Yes, and yes.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

- Do you write to-do lists for yourself?
Yes, it helps me stay focused when I have a lot to do and it feels good to see things being crossed off when they are done.

- Do you use them? In the way you intended them to be used?
Yes.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

I've tried to-do lists. I've even tried shopping lists. I forget them at home, I forget them at work, I forget I have a list at the store...

I am simply not a 'list' person.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

I make lists. Maybe one time in five they function to remind me to get things done, and actually serve as reference partway through doing stuff. More often, they are simply a scorecard: I make the list, forget about the list and go do stuff, then go back to the list at the end of the day and see how much I actually got done. Not very much, often. Only about 1 time in 5 are they completely ignored.

Unless you count writing lists. Those I never get done.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes.

And I wrote about it: Time Management from O'Reilly :-)
($20 inc shipping with the right discount book sites.)