Developing a Productivity System for Beginners
To-do lists, calendars, Bullet Journals — know what’s right for you.
Task Management may not come naturally, or easy at first for most; unless you’re the organized and clean-freak type who has always kept a strict schedule since grade school. But if you’re like most people, you probably would have thought of it as a drag to sit down and write what you plan to do for the rest of that week or day.
I certainly had those feelings then, right before I started; even though it was obvious to me that developing a habit like this would exponentially make me more effective. But let me tell you, had I not taken that important step onto the world of calendars and to-do lists, I probably would have ended up a procrastinating wreck.
Keeping a “to-do list” and a “calendar” — let’s call them a productivity system — turned out to be a life-saver for me. For those who haven’t started or are currently struggling to be consistent with it, I can’t stress the benefits enough.
Ask any high performer of any field whether it be in business, science, media, or government. Chances are they have a task management or calendar system in place that helps them perform at their best.
In contrast to the common belief that calendars and to-do lists only restrict your days and make them rigid and inflexible against spontaneity, these tools are in fact as customizable and malleable as can be. So long as they hit the goals they were created for, they can take whatever shape or form. For me, these goals are:
To squeeze out every bit of value from the time you have — What this means for you is solely dependent on what you consider valuable. This ties back to the goals and values you’ve set for yourself. If you haven’t figured those out yet, you might need to write about your personal mission statement as well. Here’show to do that:
To give you a better sense of time — Being able to look ahead or more specifically, having the dates for upcoming important events be fresh in your mind does wonders for what you do with your time now. It helps you anticipate, adjust, and make better decisions because you know exactly what’s coming up in a day, in a week, or even a month. “ How much time do I have left to devote to this activity? Which tasks should I prioritize now? Should I delegate this to someone else? Having that productivity system answers all these questions and more.
To help you avoid mistakes — We humans are flawed creatures and mistakes are always around the corner. It’s pretty obvious though that if we think things through, mistakes of all sizes, especially the more catastrophic ones, can be avoided. The productivity system, particularly the planning aspect of it, does exactly that for you.
To help you crush it — What I mean by this is performance and effectivity in whatever type of endeavor you may undertake. Not only does a productivity system help you get more stuff done, but it also improves your ability to do them well, really well.
For the absolute beginner, I suggest starting out with a simple to-do list and calendar.
The calendar would contain all events as well as sessions of all types; study sessions, play sessions, sports activities; you name it. The idea is to sit down and fill up your calendar at the start of each week, month, and year.
As of publishing this, there’s no software better than Google Calendar, especially if you have a Google account, which you probably already do.
The to-do list, on the other hand, would contain tasks of all types, examples may include ‘buy groceries’, ‘call customer support’, or other activities that you need to get done that day, that week, or month. I suggest using either Micorosft to-do or Google Tasks to start.
If you want to go hard from the get-go, you can try something called bullet-journaling, which is a super robust and highly-customizable productivity system that helps you stay on top of virtually everything. If used to its highest potential, the bullet journal could serve as your calendar, task management, note-taking, and habit tracking system. Although it was created as a traditional notebook and pen-based system, you can digitize it by using a tool like Evernote, Notion, or Microsoft OneNote.
At the moment, I’m using Google Calendar, Microsoft To-do, Notion, and Evernote but all that could change in a year. Yours might not be as dynamic, or could be insanely comprehensive. The point is to constantly adjust and change whatever works for you until you’ve found something optimal.
Whatever system or tool you may choose, always remember the main goals that creating a productivity system aims to achieve. Think about how these goals tie into your own. The system should help you better achieve these goals, not distract you from them.
Originally published at https://www.betterman.blog on September 14, 2020.
