Time - Notes - Articles about Psychology

You've probably been told that it's a good idea to make a ToDo list so that you'll be prepared for the following day. It might take about 15-20 minutes to prepare this ToDo list, but then your next day is organized and the bottom line is that you save a lot of time. It's well worth that little effort the day before to plan.

However, the people who tell you to do this leave out the important step for this list - planning for planning.

If you just sit down and try to make up a ToDo list, you're going to remember some things, forget some things, and it's going to be a difficult chore. Any chore that's difficult is a chore that you are going to put aside and you're not going to do it. You'll do it only when you feel it's convenient or you'll drop it altogether. That seems to be the opposite of the real purpose of a ToDo list and it seems to go against what you really want to accomplish.

It is important to make sure that it's easy to create this ToDo list. Number one so that it takes less time 15-20 minutes to create it. Number two so that you don't feel that it is drudgery work or difficult.

The way to do this is as follows.

The trick is to carry around little slips of paper during the course of the day. This works not only for the ToDo list but also for translators.

During the course of the day when it occurs to you that something needs to be done the following day, something needs to be put on the ToDo list, whip out that piece of paper and make a note on it. It won't take more than a few seconds.

This way you know that the ToDo list is already made up. By the end of the day most of the job is already done. You don't have that 15-20 minute job and the ToDo list appears before you.

By adding this additional scrap you have very interesting results. You will be able to find that you have the ToDo list already made up for you already.

You might then want to transfer it to a computer so that you could read it better. That's okay. If you do so then you can also adjust the priority by moving lines up and down easily.

In Word, just click on any line and then hold down on Alt-Shift and use the up and down arrows. Watch how it works. You can then prioritize your ToDo list setting the most important things on the top and the least important things on the bottom.

Now what happens to those notes that you're supposed to make? Where do they come from?

Well, the best way to do that is to carry around a tiny little pad. You would be amazed at how small pads can come. Some of them are barely bigger than sticky notes. You could keep it in your pocket or purse and you should make sure that it's easily accessible.

Another good idea is to spread note cubes. Scatter them all around the house, in every room. Don't forget the bathroom and the kitchen so that it's always readily accessible. You can grab it and you can write down what you have to without any problems and without any delays.

Keep in mind that if you say that you don't have a note handy now or you don't feel like it now and you'll write it down later, you definitely and unquestionably will forget the thing that you wanted to write down. It's either now or lost forever. And you know that.