I love lists

I have always loved making lists. Lists of my favourite movies, lists of my favourite movie hunks, lists of my best girlfriends, grocery lists, chore lists, school assignment lists, work-task lists. I take a bizarre amount of pleasure in listing all of the things I hope to accomplish in the day in my Stuff notebook and then ranking out the order in which I intend to achieve them. When I'm feeling really "plan-y", I write out a schedule of the times that I intend to dedicate to each task. As nerdy as this sounds - this is actually a great way to get lots of stuff done because I find myself racing against the clock to keep up with my schedule. I do things a lot faster and don't check Facebook as often.

Here is an example of my list for today from my Stuff 2015 notebook:

As you can see, in my brainstorm, I identify the main thing that I have to do today and the thing that I want to do. I try to reward myself with doing want-to-do things interspersed with have-to-do things.

As an extra level of hardcoreness that I usually only do on days where I feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks I have to complete, I schedule them and try to stay ahead of schedule. Although my schedule today is far from demanding, I have done up a schedule as an example.

You may notice that I scheduled some time first thing in the morning to do what I want to do. This is personal preference - I think it helps to start the day off with a pleasant task instead of diving right in to something you have to do and aren't necessarily thrilled with. The trick is to stop working on what you want to do and start working on what you have to do the minute the clock hits the minute in your schedule.

The other benefit I see to scheduling is that I am more accountable to getting the tasks that I don't want to do off my plate - without a schedule, I tend to prioritize the easy, fun tasks that I enjoy and the have-to-dos are postponed until they are "really have to stay up all night now to dos".

As I work through the tasks of the day, I cross them off - and it is unbelievably satisfying to a) finish tasks and b) stay ahead of schedule.

Here is my list by the end of the day:

Disclaimer: I forgot to bring the dry cleaning with me when I went for my walk and I checked Facebook instead of working on my resumé (shame face).

I'm not sure where I learned/inherited this penchant for list-making. My mom makes lists - but she doesn't micro-manage herself the way that I do. My dad probably doesn't spend more than 30 seconds planning what to do on a given day. My brother hates being given a list of things to do. Yet when I was cleaning out my grandparents' house after they had both passed away, I found my grandma's journals. And guess what? That's right - she micro-managed herself too and scheduled lists for every single task she had to accomplish that day. I had no idea - but she and I had basically worked out the exact same to-do list system. I'm not sure that organizational preference is an inherited genetic trait - but the only evidence I do have suggests that it skips a generation.

There is one major flaw with my to-do list system - at the end of the day, sometimes I find I was over-zealous with my planning and I don't get everything accomplished that I intended. I need a master to do list from which I choose the day's tasks based on priority and deadline. I've tried having a master to do list in my notebooks - but it was always messy and I found myself constantly re-writing it out. I explored different software applications - Evernote, iPhone Reminders, Things, but I just didn't find that the solution really worked with what I wanted to do. It was either too complicated, too simple, didn't synch nicely with my phone, or difficult to edit.

I decided to try a simple to do list in Excel with columns for project, project details, deadline, and status. It worked for a while, but I hated that I couldn't add to the list when I was away from my computer and only had my phone. Kor suggested I try using Google Sheets and having it saved in my Google Drive. I could download sheets for iPhone and update the spreadsheet on the go and the functionality allowed it to do everything that Excel could. I can also share my to-do list with my husband, which I did to show him just how much planning went into our wedding. I'm sure he avoids opening it - but one day when I am actually working on a team project, the ability to share this to-do list system will come in handy.

I currently have my spreadsheet set up so that I can filter it - right now it is filtered by Status and Priority. I filter by priority to exclude items of low priority because frankly, I don't have time to deal with low priority items right now, but I want to make sure they are listed. I filter by Status so that as I change things to complete, I can re-filter the Status column and not see items that are complete. I could also filter by things that are of a high priority, or tasks that only pertain to the Wedding, or to a specific course I am taking.

Of note, when you add rows to the sheet - sometimes the filter does not transfer to the new rows - when this happens, you have to unfilter everything and re-filter it by clicking the filter button in the toolbar (looks like a funnel).

I have been successfully using this system for 6 months, so I consider it a proven system and I am comfortable proselytizing my Google Sheets To-Do list to the masses.