Original link: http://www.barretlee.com/blog/2020/10/15/manage-time-with-useful-tools/
About five or six years ago, I started to use various list software to manage TODO List. The essence of list management is time management. There are many mature methodologies in this regard, such as four-quadrant management method, tomato technique, FAST tetralogy, GTD Working methods and so on, I didn’t understand time management enough in the early years, and there are always some problems in using it:
- The classification is messy, and it is basically classified according to the four categories of life, work, study and entertainment. Finally, it is found that the granularity is too large
- The processing time of list items is very concentrated, busy when busy, idle when idle
- Infinite delay, a lot of TODO, basically all overdue, and there are constant increments, I don’t want to manage it later
In fact, the core issues are just a few:
- If it is important but not urgent, it is not dealt with in time, and finally all pile up as important and urgent things
- Things are not subdivided, and the granularity is too large, resulting in an inaccurate record of the execution time of a task
- Did not plan today’s affairs, only focus on records, not execution
Yesterday, I recommended the ticking list app to everyone. The most ingenious design of this list lies in the two functions of tags and smart lists. Through tags, tasks can be provided with richer meta information, so that tasks can be screened when creating a smart list. And classification, my smart list is sorted from three dimensions:
- According to the four quadrants of urgency and importance, time is used as the cutting line for urgency, urgent within five days, and not urgent after five days; priority is used as the cutting line for importance, medium and high priority are important, and low priority is not urgent
- According to the granularity of things, I divide the granularity into three categories: bullfrogs, frogs, and tadpoles. Bullfrogs are large tasks that need to be re-decomposed. Frogs are small tasks that are time-consuming. Tadpoles are not time-consuming or brain-intensive. Mini-tasks for
- Classified by scene, it is divided into work, life, study and entertainment. Generally, you only look at the work category during working hours, and look at the life category after get off work.
When recording tasks, I will mark the tasks with these information: tags, priorities, deadlines (or time periods), after marking is completed, the tasks will automatically enter each smart group, and sorting is a very cumbersome task , which is why I like smart grouping.
The next thing to do is to check and sort out the list tasks of the day every day to ensure that there are 1 3 frog quests and 3 7 tadpole tasks, too many tasks will distract energy, too few will not be fulfilling; when encountering bullfrog tasks, you can create a new list with the same name and subdivide the tasks into frog tasks and tadpole tasks, so that all tasks can be guaranteed The items can fall evenly on the calendar time slot.
In fact, no matter how powerful the tool is, if my time management concept has not kept up, the tool is still a waste . I slowly try to manage my time, record more of what I am doing, and then review and optimize it. In the past few years, I have tried almost all kinds of time management software, and I always feel that it is not easy to use. After changing my mind in the past one or two years, I found that even the native Mac Reminders can help me manage tasks very well.
Of course, excellent tools will make management easier, and the tick list is still good. It is also recommended to use Microsoft To Do, which is excellent in all aspects except that it does not have the ability to display the calendar.
Managing your own time is a time-consuming thing in itself, because management means recording, analyzing and then optimizing. Management is to produce better results. Management is to help yourself better control your time. Spend some time Time to manage your own time, I think, is still very necessary.
The content of the tick list recommended on Weibo yesterday:
After spending half an hour on the ticking list, I paid to become a premium member. It is almost an upgraded version of Wunderlist, which supports multi-person collaboration. The functions I want are provided very concisely. The most satisfying points yes:
- Provides a calendar view and the ability to import local calendars and subscribe to remote calendars
- Provides a summary function, which can summarize the TODO List within a certain period of time. Isn’t this a weekly report robot~
- Provides label group and smart group capabilities to better classify, organize and present lists
- Unified various high-frequency operations into the right-click menu, quickly set up a list, and the experience is very good
- Support WeChat official account notification, view and direct reply to add list
There are also a few good points:
- Supports setting the time period of the task. The TODO List used before is all time points. This is very intuitive when presented on the calendar.
- Very well integrated pomodoro clock, although I don’t use it very much, but its design will drive me to try
- Provides task and note template capabilities, such as creating a travel list with one click
- Provides the ability to check in to help develop habits
- Supports almost all end-sync
The overall user experience is that the product design is very careful, and there are many details. The only dissatisfaction is that it does not support one-time payment and requires an annual subscription, but it seems to be a product with frequent iterations, and the annual fee of 139 is also acceptable.
This article has no intention of advertising the ticking list, but it is unintentional. The key point is to hope that everyone can understand some skills of managing time through tools.
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