Matthew Lang avatar

Matthew Lang

Family guy and web developer

The oldest trick in the book?

Or is it just common sense?

During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his simple method for achieving peak productivity:

  1. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
  2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
  3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
  4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
  5. Repeat this process every working day.

The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into his office and wrote him a check for $25,000.

— This 100-Year-Old To-Do List Hack Still Works Like A Charm by Fast Company

Dropping Todoist for a while

For a while, there has been a nagging question in the back of my mind: Am I really getting the full use out of my to-do list? Two people have made me question this in the last couple of weeks.

The first was by Patrick Rhone after re-reading a post from a while back:

You see, when the things you hope to do are on some long wish list of things you hope to do, they are telling you a lie. They are telling you that you that every single thing on there is of equal importance.

— Better Things by Patrick Rhone

The second was CJ Chilvers on the idea of killing your to-do list:

I’ve slowly become a convert to the idea that we need to concentrate on our calendars a whole lot more to achieve what we want in work and life. If you want it done, it must be scheduled. If it’s not scheduled, it’s just another item on your wishlist that will never be completed.

— Kill Your To-do List by CJ Chilvers

I work from my calendar throughout the day for high-level things like client work and more significant projects. I use Trello and schedule cards, which I’m working on in my calendar for this. For low-level stuff like errands and such, I use Todoist. Lately, though, I’ve found that Todoist has been holding nothing more than smaller tasks, which has led me to question my value in using it.

So, I’ll stick with Trello for more significant projects and schedule work for the next few weeks into my calendar. With Todoist dropping, I’m going to look for an alternative. It might be Trello, a pocket notebook, or an index card. I haven’t decided yet.