Weekly To-Do Lists For Time Management

Consider the difference between a project and an activity.

Projects are anything you want to do that involves multiple activities, such as making dinner for 6.

Activities are anything that can be physically done at one time, such as mixing pastry, chopping vegetables, marinating chicken, etc.

So what is a weekly to-do list? It’s an attempt to cross the border between projects, activities, and scheduling activities to time. Look…

Here’s a simple example:

You need to take your car into a mechanic.

So is that a project or an activity?

It’s a project, because it’s made up of a number of specific physical tasks:

• find a number and address of a local mechanic.
• phone to book it in.
• plan your week so you can take it and leave it at the mechanic.
• work out how you’ll get by without having a car for a few days.
• arrange to collect it when it’s fixed.

Several activities are involved. But if you ‘get car fixed’ on your weekly to-do list, it would be a vague non-detailed item without clear activities.

If you’ve ever tried planning your week’s schedule using something like this, you’ll know that rather than getting done, you’ll probably have to put it, and other items, onto NEXT weeks ‘weekly to-do list’. Life quickly gets messy.

Before long you abandon ‘to-do lists’ altogether ‘because they don’t seem to work well for your lifestyle’ (something similar ever happened to you? It happened to me for ages).

Rather than being a good bridge between projects and activities, a weekly to-do list becomes a major obstacle of it’s own. Like a cattle grid in-between where you are, and where you want to go… One foot wrong, and you’re stuck.

Using weekly to-do lists is a good attempt to organize things you need to get done. But what happens is that TOO many items on the weekly list end up being mini-projects in themselves, rather than actionable tasks.

Therefore you’ll glance them over… as your mind runs for the hills.

You know it happens. You end up with an ever growing list of weekly to-do’s with a few super urgent things you absolutely HAVE to get done… next week.

Get Things Done Fast with Your Natural Time Management

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