time management – Chloe J Sayers

Books, Happiness, Life Lessons, Maturity, Time

More Than Enough

Last weekend was the $10 bag book sale at our local library and we made out like bandits. In the mad rush of fellow bibliophiles grabbing titles off the shelves and shoving them into bulging bags, I snagged a copy of Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist. I started the book Saturday afternoon and finished it Sunday evening. Needless To Say, I’d highly recommend it.

In the same vein as some of my other favorite books, Necessary Endings and Essentialism, Shauna provides a raw view of her journey from busyness addiction to whole self healing. There were plenty of chuckles along the way and I interrupted my husband’s reading at least a half dozen times to share a particularly poignant passage.

What really struck me about this book; however, wasn’t the funny anecdotes or deep wisdom. As I read Shauna’s story of hustling to the point of exhaustion, I saw myself–but not my current self. I saw my high school self and my college self before senior year. After three years of literally running from classes to meetings to events, I knew exactly how far I could push myself and what I was able to accomplish. In my last year of college, I wanted to find out how little I could do and still be a productive, well-rounded, grounded, contributing, and happy soul. I hunkered down in my underground single dorm room, went to bed at 10 pm and exercised as much as I wanted to. I still do that and it’s wonderful.

Not to say that there aren’t days when I let the lust of others’ affirmation and the pride of being a do-it-all direct my steps and steal my joy. But those days are few and far between nowadays. Just the other day, Luke and I looked at each other and realized: we have more than enough time. How crazy is that? Each day feels sufficient for the work, play, walks, reading, and reflection that we desire and there’s often time left over to let the mind wander.

After watching this Ted Talk with Laura Vanderkam about time management, I made a personal vow to never say “I don’t have time for X” when I really mean “I am not prioritizing X right now.” It’s forced me to be more truthful with myself and others. We always have time for what we prioritize, irregardless of whether our priorities are aligned with our long-term goals and happiness.

About Me, Organization

A List of List-Making Tools

The first official to-do list I ever made was in January of 2006 at age 12. I broke my day

into 15 minute increments and dutifully filled each minute with a task or activity. I know this because in addition to be a neurotic list-maker, I am also a neurotic archivist of my own life. The biographers will have plenty of material.

Sometime in college, I realized that scheduling out every minute of my day wasn’t healthy for me and I returned to the traditional to-do list. Problem was, I kept it on my computer’s sticky note application which liked to spontaneously self-destruct, destroying my beautiful lists.

I’ve spent the last 3 years experimenting with various alternatives for the best to-do list tools out there, here are my top 4 for list-making bliss!

#4: Todoist

Todoist is an app that integrates across all devices, has a super clean interface, and breaks projects down with sub-tasks. It’s meant for simple to complicated to-do lists and does allow for collaboration, but I wouldn’t suggest it for a major project management.

Pros: simple user interface, unlimited lists, gamifies the to-do list by giving you a productivity score and tracking your productivity streak, creates recurring tasks

Cons: have to purchase premium to access labels and filters, no visualization of a project moving through multiple phases, clunky integration with Gmail

#3 Trello

Trello sets the golden standard for robust and fun project management. Yes, I said fun. Trello goes way beyond your basic to-do list with Kanban boards that let you drag tasks through a pipeline of progress, which is super satisfying.

Pros: free version is robust for all household/freelancing projects, 100s of templates from wedding planning to job searching available, great for collaboration, color-coding, and integrates with everything

Cons: bit of a learning curve, overkill for basic list needs, doesn’t integrate well with calendar apps

#2 Google Keep

I use Google Keep for temporarily tracking special expenses, planning upcoming trips, and reminding me to send invoices and reconcile my accounts. It’s a simple and clean as Todoist and integrates wonderfully with all things Google (of course). You can create reminders from e-mail and Google automatically adds them to Google Keep.

Pros: create recurring tasks easily, collaborate with others, color-coding and labeling for free, cross-device integration, simple to use, chrome extension to save things from the Internet, integrates well with Google Docs and Google Calendar

Cons: no desktop app, not a robust project management solution

#1 Pen and paper

While there’s a lot of great electronic to-do list options out there, I wanted to be able to check out where I was with tasks for the day without opening up my laptop and inevitably end up watching cooking videos for 4 hours on Facebook.

I used sticky note style lists for a while, which are great for daily to-do lists, but not great for longer term planning. Luke got me a Nomatic planner + journal last year for Christmas and I’m in love. It makes it easy to create daily repeating tasks and helps break down monthly and weekly goals into day-sized bites.

Pros: non-digital option, satisfaction of physically checking things off, handwritten goals are more likely to be accomplished

Cons: might spill coffee on it, no device compatibility, zero integrations

What are your favorite list-making tools?

Organization, Personal Finances

Red Tape

When I was 4 years old, too young to be left unsupervised ( I was the child who had to learn not to touch burners the hard way ), my mom would take me downstairs with her to the laundry room. One of my favorite activities during these monotonous times of sort, wash, and folding was button sorting.

We had a delightful jar of mismatched buttons collected through the years. I’d grab an old tin pan, dump all the buttons out and then sort to my heart’s delight. Red, maroon, circular, star-shaped, old, new, thread-less, blue, green. Each button had a pile to call its home. Then, I’d throw them back into the jar and start all over again.

My dad is a handyman. I’ve never encountered a problem he couldn’t fix. Sometimes, though, his solutions required multiple trips to the local hardware store. I loved accompanying him on these voyages. While he searched for the perfect gauge of wire, I was magically drawn to the screw and nail aisle. Beautiful blue bins with nice, clean labels on the front, telling the astute observer what contents were within. Yet, more often then not, a quick glance inside revealed that the screws and nails were all mixed up! I made it my personal responsibility to right this great wrong.

I created my first spreadsheet at age 10. I used it to schedule out my day, broken into 15 minute increments. Each time slot had an activity or category. If just a category was listed, an additional spreadsheet was utilized that listed out possible options under said category. I haven’t the slightest idea what first possessed me to budget my time so meticulously but if you know me now, it was the beginning of a life-long love affair with Excel.

Sometimes, however, I wonder if I’m stuck in a toxic relationship with my plethora of time-management tools. I make sticky notes to create to-do lists to draft a spreadsheet with a Master Task List. Every step and breath I take is color-coded and duly recorded. It is a wonderfully predictable existence, but a dangerous one. What if Outlook malfunctions? Or I accidentally delete a sticky note? Am I left wandering aimlessly, incapable of eating or sleeping without being told to do so through a preprogrammed project management system?

Not yet. But one day, I’m afraid I will wake up to find myself thoroughly entangled in red tape of my own design.