I was hanging out online with my friend Sean discussing our Friday evening task list.
What to do next...?
He likes to write out tasks and todos on paper; he likes crossing them out by hand.
I like to keep a log of my tasks and todos in a more permanent form.
Here’s why:
Information alone… is worthless.
A task represents knowledge in execution, that is, work (force applied through a distance) was performed, value was created. When you turn burgers, fries and milkshakes (say) into something measurable, like houses, or web pages, your todo list provides a “map of the territory.” Each task forms a step in a procedure for accomplishing a goal. You can give the map away, teach it to someone else, or use it again later. Your long list of completed and annotated tasks provides a library demonstrating your knowledge.
(Obviously, I’m not talking about doing the laundry here… but once in a while, I’ll log household chores too.)
More benefits of task tracking
- When you get really detailed with chunking tasks down into small bites, you end up with a process for accomplishing the same task in the future.
- Single tasks can be written as detailed blog posts. Now you have excellent documentation for what you accomplished. You can do that task again, honing it down into something repeatable. Print it out, put it in a 3-ring binder. Outsource it.
- Multiple related tasks can be summarized as a procedure for accomplishing a larger project. The second time such a project is undertaken, more detailed tasking will emerge.
- I get a great feeling of satisfaction looking back over a long list of completed tasks. Nathanial Branden (6 Pillars of Self-Esteem) regards measurable accomplishment as an integral part of self-esteem.
- Collaboration can proceed much easier when tasks can be tracked and recorded. (It’s easy to assign blame!)
Task management
So what to about this? Paper and pencil? Fully digital? Personally, I use an approach best described as
the best of both worlds.
I use paper when paper makes sense, and digital when digital makes sense. (I have a blog post brewing on the very subject.) Keeping track of tasks and todo (or is it “to do”?) lists has turned in a major cottage industry. Back in the dinosaur days of large application programming, the running joke was “An application cannot be considered complete until it has a builtin text editor.” In these Web 2.0 days, it seems like it’s a built in task list. There is probably a task list plugin for WordPress…
…I have to go check this out… be right back…
Yep. At least 3 WordPress todo or task list plugins resulting from my cursory search.
But I don’t use WordPress for task tracking. I prefer a more “integrated solution,” which is currently Edgewall.org’s Trac system. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. In the past, I’ve used Basecamp, Gootodo, Remember the Milk, Netvibes, Pageflakes, surely other which escape my mind. Each seem to have particular strengths and weaknesses. Trac’s main weakness is it’s complexity, which is dual to it’s main strength: flexibility. As it turns out… I have yet another article stewing away on how to use Trac, including how to sort tasks using Covey’s criteria of importance and urgency. That will have to wait, for now.
