Fifty-nine days ago, (it’ll be two months on Thursday) I started tracking my completion of projects and items that needed to be done in my life. Everything from the most mundane “unload the dishwasher” to the most epic “build a software product called Stitchy” goal is included in my to do list.
It came from recognizing that in addition to being overweight, my life was too – and I wasn’t managing my workload appropriately. For more on this, see the following three post series that I posted back when I started using this process…
It was suggested over the weekend, that I might want to write a blog post about how I do my ToDo spreadsheet. As it turns out, having had nearly two months living with it, I now have a better idea how I use it – and I’ve made some changes. I think I’ve reached a more-or-less steady state, however.
First caution – I would generally use Google Sheets/Google Drive to do a spreadsheet like this because it is a convenient way to access it on a multitude of devices without having to move attachments around constantly. Although it is a bit of a pain to edit on mobile, it would be handy to be able to pull it up on my phone to see what I should be doing next. And then of course I can do most of my editing on my work PC and home PC. Unfortunately my employer blocks Google Drive, so I’m instead emailing an Excel file around, because I need to be able to modify/edit/read it while I’m in the office, and like I mentioned – Google Sheets is not much fun on mobile, when it comes to data entry. So it’s in Excel, and I’m emailing it to myself at the end of each workday, typically.
Additionally, in the example file I’ve included, I’ve removed some content. I have a pair of columns for Alice’s business and the upcoming projects for it – some of which involve me, and some of which do not. Just so I can keep track of all the things that she/I/both of us might be doing and make sure that I’m meeting her business’ needs as well. But that information is somewhat private and includes information about what she’s working on next, some of which I doubt she’d be comfortable with sharing online. So I axed those columns. They look like the other columns pretty much, although they generally don’t have dates associated.
I also removed all the other sheets that aren’t strictly the ToDo list itself. I use this spreadsheet as my current working set, so if I’ve got projects, notes, etc., I will regularly use additional tabs of the worksheet to keep track of them. Once a project is done, I usually spin those additional sheets out into their own spreadsheets, but it’s handy to have everything in one place while I’m working on it.
Here’s my copy of the sheet – feel free to download it to follow along…
In this spreadsheet, I’ve got four columns (A, C, E, and F) of “things to do” essentially. I’ve got personal/non-business items in column A, with associated dates in column B. Likewise, I’ve got business/passion project items in column C, with associated dates in column D. Column E is for longer term goals and cleaning the various rooms of the house back to “perfect” and does not have dates – I clean when I can and just am trying to make general progress on those categories. If a room is clean, I highlight it in light green, and remove the highlight from it when it is no longer clean. Column F is more leisure/fun stuff. Right now, I’ve got the podcasts I’m listening to, books I’m reading or that are queued to read, items from the Marvel Cinematic Universe which I haven’t experienced, and a list of Prince’s discography, which I am listening to in chronological order. In each of these columns, I have things broken down into categories. Once a category exists, I generally don’t remove it – if I do the last thing, I just leave the category there, but empty.
Regarding dates, these dates are really just a guideline and kick in the pants – I adjust them regularly as needed. The point of them is more to put the actions in an order that makes sense to me and sets a reasonable pace for completing things. I’ve got conditional formatting setup on all the dates such that anything that should have happened within the last 7 days is highlighted in red, anything that was due yesterday is highlighted in yellow, anything due today is highlighted in light green, and anything due tomorrow is highlighted in darker green. I’m constantly shifting dates as needed – if I am less productive, I’m moving some of the dates into the future. If I’m more productive, I’m shifting the next few things I plan to do into earlier dates. I can open this, and at a glance, see what I should be working on.
Whenever I finish anything, I remove it from the list, and make sure to mention it in my next blog post. Many things are not on here – I don’t have laundry, dishes, taking the kids for naps, grocery shopping, etc. listed. Those activities are routine and most of them occur on a specific frequency, so I’d be updating the information constantly. I know that every Saturday or Sunday, I’m going to do laundry, for example. I still count them as accomplishments because they take time away from other activities and they do “count” as having done something productive, but much like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, the laundry will never really technically be “done”. It’s only ever “done for now”.
This method of managing my to do list has been working fairly well. My biggest problem is a lack of time to work on items from the list – which is why I regularly have days where I don’t mark off anything from the list. The good news is the list is generally getting shorter as time goes on. I’m finishing things, and I’m not taking on a ton of new responsibilities. Some items on my list could easily be subdivided into multiple tasks, and when I get to them, I will. But for now, larger projects stay as one item until I get to it.