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Apropos of John Quiggin: Time management tips

I attended an Australian-US cultural difference awareness training recently. The instructor called people who worked best on multiple tasks at once “polychronic” and people who worked best organizing their time starting and finishing one task at a time “monochronic.” I’m sure these are misnomers, but I have heard some people complain about being most effective when focussed on a single task, and others that argue that they are most effective when they are allowed a task load that lets them shift context and keep working on another task while they let a task in progress to “rest” to enable them to get out of the trenches and take a fresh approach when they pick up the task again.

Using the terms above my time management is best described as “chronic.” I think I work best on a small number of tasks. I try to limit myself to doing 1 or 2 things at once if can. I’d feel better about sharing my time management tips if I thought I were good at it, but here are the mechanics of my time management anyway.

1. Remembering things: My memory sucks. This is part of the reason Google Desktop is so valuable to me. I write things down in meetings and I’ve programmed myself to automatically transcribe action items to my todo list when I sit down at my desk, or when I remember to … oh hell, Catch 22.

2. Todo list: I maintain a text file called todo.txt which is synced with my PDA. It is a list of one-line tasks with the format:

S|M|L A|W: Date Entered - Task Description

[S]mall [M]edium [L]arge - no strict definition.
Future [A]ction | [W]orking on it - not perfect abbreviations, but a short form of whether it's something that I need to do, or if it's something I'm doing.

I’ve tried using Outlook tasks, but it just doesn’t work for me. It just isn’t easy enough. Text is easy, fast, malleable and simple to back up and transport.

3. Donedid list: When I’ve completed a task from todo, I cut the line and insert it onto the top of another file called donedid.txt so I can remember what I’ve finished. If it’s a task that didn’t get done because it wasn’t needed I note that in parenthesis after the task description.

4. Get on with it: The best way to finish something is to start it. Just do it. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. The longest journey starts with a footstep. Because time won’t give me time and time makes lovers feel like they’ve got something real… Recite your favourite aphorism and go.