managing your todo list: make lists by context, the weekly review, and the annual purge

a few weeks ago, i was talking to my friend miriam about some tips on managing todo lists. i realized i hadn’t written these down so here they are.

separate your todo lists by context

this is a tip i learned from getting things done. putting all your todos on the same list creates clutter and overwhelm. dividing them by context helps cut down on the size of each list. this helps them feel manageable (to a point).

additionally, you should only be looking at tasks in the place where you can make progress on them. this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it can definitely help. miriam can attest to it.

the weekly review

this is also getting things done thinking. your todo list(s) is only as useful as your brain trusts it (i wrote a full post about this over here). if your brain knows that you add things to your list only for them to never get done, your todo list is no longer a useful tool. this type of system failure looks like (a) your brain beginning to remind you again to do things that are already on your list or (b) you have the same task on your list multiple times.

the remedy for this is the weekly review. once a week, you should be going through everything in your personal system. david allen has a very specific order and routine for this (shared over here). i basically just go through my tasks (parking lot, todos, and doings) and make sure they all make sense or (re)move them if they don’t. knowing that you’re going to do this every week puts your brain at ease. this allows your todo list return to become a functional tool again.

the annual purge

i can’t remember exactly where this came from. i think it’s a mix of a few things, at least one of which is several of my friends who occasionally just delete all their emails. the parallel to the todo list is exactly same and follows the same logic.

basically, once a year, usually right before or right after the new year, i delete (archive on trello) all my todos. at a certain point, the lists just get too long. there are things that are great ideas that you will just never move. and the really important things either your brain will prompt you with again or they’ll come up again in some other way.

this really matters for two reasons. first, it keeps your lists manageable over time. second, it is really important to (viscerally and practically) remember that letting go is the best thing to do sometimes. you can’t do everything, no matter how much you want to. realizing that (really, not just mentally) and then implementing practices based on that knowledge actually feels amazing, too. the freedom to start over is truly liberating.

the paradox of church and state in the u.k. versus the u.s.

another interesting point alain de botton made in his recent on being interview was about church and state in the u.s. versus in the u.k. there is a quite a curious paradox when you take a step back and really analyze what’s going on. 

in legal terms, the u.k., church and state are literally joined. every citizen of england is a member of the national church of england. in america, church and state are cleaved.

in practice, churches and religion in england are miniscule. few people are religious and never do politicians discuss or invoke their faith. in america, it’s hard to imagine a politician not being explicit about their religion. religion is a major social and political issue.

now here’s the irony.

in impact, the u.k., the public services are amazing. they actually care for their poor. for example, check out this data discussing how the number of poor households is going down in england. or here’s an interesting snippet taken from an actual u.k. government website:

Poverty, as measured by a household’s income relative to the national average, is often a symptom of deeper, more complex problems. Many of these problems are passed on from one generation to the next… We want to make a real and lasting difference, to help people change the course of their lives. To do this, we need to deal with the problems that cause people to end up living in poverty, rather than dealing with people’s incomes in isolation.

in america, in spite of our individually “strong” religious piety, our public services are terrible. our economic inequality is rising. we hardly have any services to truly take care of the poor. in fact, more often than not, we discriminate against and penalize the poor just for being poor.

so what does this mean? does the atomization of faith in america actually weaken it (something i’ve written about before)? does this have to do with the age of the countries? maybe england has just had more time to develop socially just services and such. or maybe it’s random?

who knows, but it’s definitely interesting. especially from an institution-building perspective… maybe embedded religion/faith/spirituality in the bones of an institution is better than leaving it up to the individuals in the system to implement on their own. and in the case of england, that can happen while not forcing the religion on the individual people.

pomodoro brilliance: part 2 (maximum value)

now that part 1 has explained how and why pomodoros work, here’s part 2.

pomodoros are absolutely the most helpful when you have a consistent/constant type of work to power through. for many knowledge workers, the expectation is to switch between different types of tasks often. in those cases, pomodoros are still helpful for focus. but in the case where the work is consistent, pomodoros gain an additional value.

i’ve written several times about how the process of writing my master’s thesis changed my life. it’s a perfect example (writing a long document) of the type of work for which pomodoros deliver the most value. other types of work like this include ideating, doing graphic design, reading, thinking, etc.

anyway, here are the layers of value that pomodoros provided during my thesis process (of course, in addition to the things listed in part 1).

• writing in pomodoros helped make clear how much work i could do in a given time. after a few weeks, it became clear to me that i could write 300-500 words in 25 minutes. more and better sleep meant more words, as did having exercised and having coffee.
• knowing my writing pace helped me created a writing schedule. once i knew i could consistently plan on 300 words per 25 minutes, i knew i could get 600 words/hr. that’s about two (double spaced) pages/hr. i could then make predictions like “if i need ten pages by the end of the week so i need five hours of pomodoroing.“
• over time, i learned how long i could pomodoro before losing steam. near the end of our sessions, annemarie and i would notice increased difficulty focusing and a diminished word count. eventually, we discovered that we could write for about 3 hours before needing to tap out.
  
• knowing how much i could write in a given span of time before reaching fatigue helped me (imperfectly) plan out my entire thesis process. ex: if i knew i had a full draft (80 pages) due on april 30th, i could say “at 3h a day i can, conservatively, write 1800 words a day which is 7 pages. if i need 80 pages, i should give myself 11 days.” i rearranged my schedule to make sure i could hit my deadline (i gave myself a few days of cushion, too).
  

the dope thing was that i actually finished EARLY based on this planning and data (which 100% came from me). none of this included my editing process (which ended up being longer and harder than i expected), but still, finishing early felt dope. it also gave me some time to design the document for my final client.

the dream is real!

pomodoro brilliance: part 1 (why it works)

working in pomodoros has provided and continues to provide me with a ton of value. there are a couple of different levels of this and it’s evolved over time, but before getting to that, here’s how/why they work. if you’re unsure of what a pomodoro is check out this 2.5 minute video before reading on.

• pomodoros work because they are based on the natural patterns of the human brain. our brains are ineffective when they are expected put to work for indefinite stretches of time. my guess is that this is an evolutionary trait that has something to do with hunting for small amounts of time, which requires high focus, and gathering, which requires low focus. just a guess. turns out, our brains are most effective, and able to stay effective for longer spans of time, when we alternate between stretches of focus and non-focus (sidenote: imo, this is why the worlds of standardized tests and the knowledge work are so bad).
• additionally, pomodoros support focus by creating specific time for distractions. this allows you to really focus during the focused times. when you don’t know when you’re going to take your next break, there’s no reason to not check your texts (or facebook, instagram, email, whatever) every time one pops up. however, if you know that you’ll be checking regularly, the need to check incessantly diminishes.

now the highest value that pomodoros provided me was during my thesis process. but i’m out of time so i’ll have to write part 2 of this tomorrow!

coming soon: the burnout vs hate your job questionnaire

a week or two ago, i stumbled upon this article: are you burnt out (or do you just really hate your job)?. it’s not actually that clear about what burn out is, but i love the idea of being able to determine the different between burn out and hating your job.

so on that note, i think building a short questionnaire or quiz could be helpful for jungle. ross and i talk to people every week (maybe even everyday) who hate what they do for work. it’s unbelievable how many people feel this way. maybe 1 in 10 people that i’ve met in the two years since finishing grad school have said that they didn’t hate their work.

some hate the work itself (meaningless number crunching, pointless or destructive selling of services or unecessary/luxury goods). some hate the environment (terrible bosses, bad management, shitty organizational culture).

now on the other hand, there are some people who actually would like their work if they weren’t so burnt out. many of my nonprofit friends love what they do, but they have to do so much of it that they hate it. or they hate their lives because of the overwork. but that’s still a minority reality.

ok so why does the difference between burnout and hating your job matter?

two reasons:

1. bell hooks explains in all about love that how we feel at and about our work is a fundamental part of our well-being (see quote below). because we spend so much time doing it, it has a pervasive impact on our time outside of work. when you love your work, the time you spend there allows you to create a positive feedback loop of wellness. the converse is also true. so hating your work/job negatively impacts many parts of your life and diminishes your capacity to be well outside of work. often this is because you have to spend so much energy recovering from and steeling yourself up for work that you’re left with less energy and motivation to bring goodness into the world. this is why “loving what you do” is not a nicety.
2. i’m beginning to believe that if we can get a large enough mass of people who recognize that they don’t have to work jobs they hate, we can actually undermine the corrupt work structures that allow those shitty jobs to exist in the first place.

so. quiz coming soon.

relevant quotes

The practice of love takes time. Without a doubt, the way we work in this society leaves individuals with little time when they are not physically and emotionally tired to work on the art of loving.
—bell hooks, all about love, chapter: mutuality: the heart of love

[insert other quote about how hooks thought her friends were crazy that she wanted a loving work environment]