Supercharging the to-do-list

Part 1 of a series about productivity in life and as a department chair… without going too far off the edge!

There’s plenty of advice out there on creating the basic to-do list. There are lots of different programs and apps, the bullet journal concept, as well as many different concepts one can buy and/or download.

I’m haunted from time to time by the words of David Allen:

The better you get, the better you better get.

David Allen (cited myriad places)

I’ll admit that I have quite a few “to-do” list type of programs and apps, and I’ve tried to figure out the best way to use them all. I’m not sure why 2023 will be better than 2022, 2021, etc., but David Allen.

I also happen to be on a few productivity mailing lists, and have seen some of their websites and have bought some of their programs. There are sometimes interesting ideas, but many of those lists are created by people/companies that have bills to pay, and thus, charge a non-trivial amount of money for some of their advice. ^[1]They’re also turning into subscription models as well. On my salary, I really can’t afford a lot of those systems — they’re made for people above my pay grade. Essentially, they’re geared more for corporate or entrepreneur types, not academics. ^[2]Yes, I know, some of the people involved in some of those groups are academics, as the companies remind me in their promotional emails. Many of those people may be at Research 1 Universities, but … Continue reading

So, here’s a peek inside what I’m trying now (and am nerdy enough to have multiple versions that I’ve been experimenting with!).

My to-do lists exist in four different places – and this is part of why I’m trying to change things.

• “Someday/Maybe” lists exist in Toodledo. I used to use the paid version of it, and it’s not bad. I didn’t reup when it went through some ownership changes, and perhaps I’ll look at it again at some point. But it’s perfect for what I need in the free version – a place to store lists that don’t change much. From time to time, I download the list just to make sure that I’m not locked out forever, and that I have a backup of the list. Mostly, Toodledo contains books or articles that I want to read someday. ^[3]This list is already pretty long. Then there are the books on my shelf at school (and home) that I’ve bought and haven’t read yet. When a student asks, “How many of these have you actually … Continue reading
• Omnifocus: I REALLY want to get better with Omnifocus. I know I’m not using it as much as I could/should. At this moment, it consists of the “midterm” range of the someday/maybe list. I even have a variety of helps/guides, and of course, the MacSparky guides to Omnifocus. One of my summer 2023 goals – condense Toodledo and various long-term paper lists into Omnifocus and then do a better job of picking items for each day. ^[4]I realize that this may be a quixotic task, especially for someone who could spend the rest of his academic career in some kind of administrative role, The higher I get, the less likely my time will … Continue reading
• A couple of sheets of paper that listed goals/projects from the past couple of years that haven’t been finished, nor have they been moved to Omnifocus and/or Toodledo. They sit at the back of the clipboard right now.
• A sheet of paper (sometimes two when I’m really behind) that lists my tasks for today.

There have been a variety of productivity gurus that have suggested a blend of analog and digital, and that appeals to me. I also realize that the busier I get and the older I get, the more likely it is that I have to write things down so that I don’t forget them. 😉

The problem with my system is that if I get really behind, I may have several sheets worth of to-do lists that are only partially completed, and I have to spend some time condensing those down into a new sheet.

Yes, I know, one should only have 4-5 items on a daily to-do list. But that doesn’t work for me, because I’m too afraid I’ll miss something, even if I don’t get to it that day. And other people get to add items to my to-do list also. Don’t misunderstand me: this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, that’s what I signed up for when I became department chair. Part of serving the department is attending to the small and large tasks. But it’s a fact that I live in that strange middle world where people above me (the dean’s office and provost’s office) push tasks to me, my colleagues push tasks to me, and I am still a regular faculty member as well. For what it’s worth, we chairs do the same thing to our deans, and the deans do the same thing to the provost’s office. It’s the nature of the beast called academia. My point here is simply this: it’s a productivity issue that we normally don’t systematize and think about quite as well as we could, and I suppose that a part of this website will include both my struggles and how I’m trying to come up with workable solutions.

Other programs I’ve tried in the past, and still have but am not using:

• Todoist
• Remember the Milk

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of those apps; I just didn’t give them the time or attention after an initial burst. Perhaps a Summer 2023 project?

Thoughts I’ve had, but didn’t really like how they turned out:

• Putting the to-do list in Goodnotes. There’s enough other stuff in Goodnotes that I don’t need to throw in lots of to-do list files as well. Besides, Goodnotes is a fairly hefty (by iPad standards) app when one considers the size of the app and data files, and while files inside of it can be exported to PDF, there’s still a bit of a lock-in because of the proprietary format of GoodNotes files.

So what am I doing to master my to-do lists? I’ll actually provide example files in a future part of this series, once I clean them up and make them accessible. ^[5]Right now, they’re really thrown together in InDesign. They don’t even have proper paragraph styles or headings. #embarrassing. And to think, I’m an Accessible Document Specialist! … Continue reading Basically, I’ve decided that my days fall into certain categories, and my printed planners will match those categories.^[6]I thought about using “genre” instead of “category,” but decided that was too nerdy and academic. Here are the categories I’m using right now:

• Cleaning days (at-home list): These are when we have minor/major amounts of cleaning to do (such as when the exterminator is coming!). Yes, sometimes, I have to remind myself about the specific cleaning tasks, even though I’ve been cleaning for how many years?!^[7]Or perhaps it’s a way of making myself feel better that I can actually check something off a list!
• Heavy class/meeting days: On those days, I will come a bit closer to more of a timeblocking approach, since I have to make sure to include class prep in the midst of everything else.
• More fluid days (for lack of a better term): There may be a couple of meetings, but mostly, I am working independently/semi-independently.
• There are also weekly and monthly versions of my lists.

One thing I realized as I put together these print versions is that I never really have the time in one day to completely finish a project…. or maybe it’s a bit of ADHD ^[8]I have never been diagnosed with it, but let’s be honest — sometimes, we don’t want to spend 10 hours doing one thing, and we need a bit of variety in order to actually do something. Sometimes making small progress over many days on a project means it’ll get done eventually!^[9]For example, getting electronic copies of all of the academic articles I have took over 2 years! But some days I knocked out 50-60 articles, and some days only a few. That doesn’t mean that the … Continue reading And I’m realizing that I need to force myself to block out time to do things that I should do (One doesn’t want the dog to feel neglected, so I actually have a spot on one of my to-do sheets for how I choose to play with Cooper each day!).

This is already getting to be an over 1200 word post, so I’ll stop here and do a forensics-type preview of what’s to come in this series:

• Decisions I’m making about how I’m choosing to deal with meeting agendas and notes.
• How I’m trying to block the different parts of my day.
• Trying to balance the need to feel productive vs. having the time and space to just relax either with colleagues or family.
• I’m also open to suggestions for future topics. 🙂