Getting back to my non-work related blog...
[voiceover by Morgan Freeman]
Previously in the Life After Eshen blog, Eric mentioned how the tyranny of the urgent no longer rules his daily life. Yet there's the underlying concern of having the days melt together like the emperor penguin's habitat in Antarctica. Eric needed to come up with a way to decide what to do on a daily basis.
[/voiceover]
Having more time and with the Fall semester starting, I decided to dive into the online masters program and take three classes - Software Design Practices, Database Systems Concepts and Design and Machine Language for Trading. I also wanted to hone my programming skills at the same time since the classes all assume the students already have at least a modicum of programming experience. Additionally there are things around the house that needed to be done but tended to fall into the category 'out of sight, out of mind'.
During the first week of class, I started getting anxious about what I needed to do for the various classes as well as other things that I needed to do. The list of tasks would run around my mind and make it feel like there was much more to do than what was really there. Taking advice from what I told my direct reports when they got overwhelmed with too much work, I came up with a method to plan my daily activities.
I bought a small whiteboard from the dollar store and listed out six items that I wanted to make progress on each day. In the morning, while still motivated with a fresh cup of coffee still running through my veins, I write down what I hope to accomplish in each area that day. As I make progress during the day, I reward myself by erasing the item I just completed. Usually I get all but one or two items completed in a day. That's fine since if I'm always finishing everything, I'm probably underestimating what I can do each day (aka sandbagging). Also, I try to avoid the temptation of doing something that's not on the board, writing it on the board and erasing it immediately thereafter.
There are probably additional items I should also track such as 'Physical Fitness' or 'Personal Development'. However since I don't have enough room, if I were to add more categories, to paraphrase a movie quote "We're gonna need a bigger white board"
Let me know your thoughts on daily to-do lists
Eric
Movie references used in this blog: March of the Penguins, Jaws
I use toodledo.com to track my todo lists. It's easy to update and organize, and you can carry the list on your phone as the apps sync with the web.
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