Sometimes, I feel like I have a million things going through my head all at the same time. It gets so bad sometimes, I can’t get anything done and I whirl around in a kind of dervish trying to figure out what to start on first.
When I get like that, I’ve found that sitting down for 20 minutes or so and writing everything in my head down on a sheet of paper helps immensely.
This list isn’t for anyone but me. Sometimes, I ask for help with things, sometimes, I just do them all on my own. Often, it’s more about the things that won’t get done rather than the things that will.
I don’t stop any ideas from being written down, I just go through my head and everything that pops in there is added to my list. It’s like brainstorming. When I’m just about done, I look around me in a 360-degree view to see if there’s anything that sparks my memory or interest that needs to be added to the list.
When I’m done writing everything down, I go through and put an asterisk on things that are time-sensitive, and I put an exclamation mark on things that have been outstanding on my list for a long time. Sometimes, I start an item on my to-do list, but I’m not able to complete it. That’s when I fill in half of the checkbox on the diagonal. When something is completed, I fill in the checkbox entirely.
The most interesting part of this process is that I don’t need to stare at the list to get things done, it is merely there to keep me on track. The items on my to-do list tend to get done whether I’m looking at the list or not. The simple task of writing down all the things I want to do keeps my brain caged and keeps me on task.
I also tab out my notebook month by month. On the first of every month, when I add a new tab, I go through the pages from the previous month and re-write my to-do items on the first day of the new month. This helps keep things fresh in my mind.
What do you do to keep on task?
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