Planner Quickie: The Check Off Task List | Giftie Etcetera: Planner Quickie: The Check Off Task List

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Planner Quickie: The Check Off Task List

Planners are quick. You open them, you write, and you close them. Done. 

In the time that it took for me to type that and for you to read it, you could have written three tasks in your planner.

The truth is that serious planners spend a lot of time, writing each task in the correct part of the planner, with the correct context code and in a pretty handwriting. We obsess over how the insides of our planners look and function, sometimes so much that the quick aspect of using the planner gets abandoned.

But there is a time for a quick list, and, if you have a planner, there is a place for it.

A quick list of tasks should be created when tasks will be done immediately or soon, right in a row, but there are enough tasks that it is worth writing them down. 


For me, the magic number of tasks that must be written down is three. I can't help it. Two tasks in - and I forget what I was doing! (I'm older than I look. This is proof of my age.)

I might write a quick list of things to do before I go to bed. 


(Pants, in the example below, mean that my kids must wear long pants with their school uniform tomorrow. I may be getting older, but I do remember to wear pants.) (Um, usually.)


Or maybe I am about to go on some errands, and just jot the order of the errands.

Perhaps I need to proofread the article, email the article, and file the article. A quick list makes sure that, while proofreading, I don't forget to send the article to my boss.

If the day is almost over anyway, the jotted tasks just go in the leftover space on my daily page. Otherwise, they go on my dashboard paper. 


The mess of the rest of the page, combined with the big circles notating tasks, makes the list jump off of the page visually when written on an otherwise complete day.


Planners are an excellent tool. Don't forget to use them for their primary purpose - to get things done that need doing.

Etcetera.

5 comments:

Tita Mama said...

I understand completely about the memory issue. I have it too. I'm so terrible about getting sidetracked that I have to even write down a one item list. :) My planner takes no awards for beauty and neatness, but I enjoy seeing all the decorated planners.

Patty said...

I completely understand! I've gotten away from making as pretty as I used to, and back to using for its function. I can't live without it now. It does all my thinking for me... Thank God! lol

Unknown said...

I too am a sucker for a pretty planner... but I know that messy works so much better for me!

Bree said...

I'm not usually so picky about *where* I right things, but I definitely fall prey to the pretty handwriting problem. My mother spent years of homeschooling improving my handwriting, and I'm a little obsessed with keeping it that way.

Anonymous said...

Pretty in my planner is a bonus. I use it for the functionality! I just wish I was a plannerd before I even met my hubby. Life would have been much easier from when I had my first kid.