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004: Mastering To Do Lists
1.4k Plays6 years ago
Mia and Dinah talk about the benefits of To Do Lists and the steps they followed to optimise their To Do List systems.
This episode discusses how To Do Lists allow you to get clarity on what needs to be done and the pros of centralising your lists on one digital tool that can be shared with other family members.
They outline the difference among:
- To Do Lists - are actionable, time-bound, contain verbs
- Checklists (eg prepping the house for holidays) - help you remember how to do something efficiently and comprehensively
- Reference Lists (eg movies I want to watch) - capture suggestions, recommendations and sources of info
These lists are all worthwhile but can often be confused.
They talk about the various online tools available and what they use. Dinah is using Wunderlist. Mia is using Reminders in her iPhone for her To Do list and Notes for checklists and references. She mentions that she uses voice commands for Siri to add items to both.
Mia and Dinah discuss the various options of categorising and prioritising lists and how they refreshed and reorganised their To Do lists systems.
LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK
- Dinah talks about how easy it was to go on holiday with all her bookings saved on her Google Drive.
- Mia talks about how she has already started her Christmas shopping online using wishlists she has added to during the year, and a spreadsheet saved on Google Drive.
LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK
- Dinah talks about failing to complete her online grocery shopping.
- Mia talks about having technical hiccups with her shared calendar system and its inability to synchronise frequently.
POWER TOOL
- Doodle – free online scheduling app to simplify choosing an event date or time for multiple people.
RESOURCES
- David Allen’s book Getting Things Done
- James Clear – Talks about prioritization and habit formation
- How I Work – Amantha Imber podcast
To Do List apps include:
SHARE
Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Transcript
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Meet Diana and Mia: Life Admin Enthusiasts
00:00:36
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony. I'm Diana Roe Roberts, a commercial and finance executive. And I'm Mia Northrop, a user experience designer, researcher and writer.
The Psychology of To-Do Lists: A Dopamine Delight
00:00:58
Speaker
This episode we'll be talking about to-do lists. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:01:06
Speaker
I don't know how many times I've been playing with my kids or trying to get to sleep at night, but all I'm actually thinking about is that I must remember to fill in that excursion permission slip and book that immunization appointment. And then the moment's gone and inevitably I still forget to do those things.
00:01:25
Speaker
Well, the answer, Diana, is lists. I love lists. I've always loved the reassurance of a to-do list. I like knowing that I've got a place where I've captured all the stuff I need to do. I love the fact that it provides direction on how I should be using my day. And I love, love, love the satisfaction of ticking those little check boxes when I get things done. That little dopamine hit is priceless.
Mastering To-Do Lists with David Allen's Method
00:01:49
Speaker
So my old favorite, David Allen, in his book, Getting Things Done, says there are five key steps. The first one is to capture everything, get everything out of your head and onto paper. Second step to clarify, make sure that you're clear what things are actually actions compared to checklists and reference lists. I feel this is a big one for me. Like I've always been pretty good about capturing things and getting it out of my head and putting it on paper or
00:02:19
Speaker
because it's 2018, getting it onto my phone or some digital format. But actually distinguishing between a to-do list versus a checklist versus a reference list, like the movies I want to see or the books I want to catch up on. I think that's a big thing for people. I think lots of people fill their list. They're a bit of a disorganized mess. There's a mix of tasks or wants or needs or random ideas.
00:02:44
Speaker
But to do lists really are for time management. They're not for those notes. They're not for evergreen ideas. They need to be actionable and measurable and time found, and they need to have a verb. I agree, and I think it's really important that you can differentiate between the two, although you might use the same system to store information.
Keeping To-Do Lists Relevant and Actionable
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, the same tool, but yeah, different kinds of lists. All right, so that's the first two. What's his third step?
00:03:11
Speaker
Your third step is to make sure that you organize your list into a system that makes sense for you. So there's lots of different ways you might do that.
00:03:21
Speaker
And then the fourth thing is to review those lists. So to have a system that you actually go back and look at those lists and make sure that they're up to date and useful. And number five is actually engage, getting it done and deciding what to do and when. Yeah, it's all good. Well, having the list, actually doing the tasks, that's the clincher. You want to see some movement.
00:03:45
Speaker
And the interesting thing, that reviewing that, I realized that I have, we're going to get into the details of how we are organizing ourselves when it comes to to-do lists, but I did realize that when I looked at my to-do list, they had been in the same order. I don't change the order of them.
00:04:00
Speaker
In my head, I had the priorities, but I didn't actually change the list to reflect. And you kind of get list blindness. I started just ignoring the top three things because I'd been there for so long that I just stopped looking at them because they're big and involved in procrastinating like a boss. You've got to move these things around. You've got to ensure that you're reviewing them and getting rid of the things that are also red herrings.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah. And also using that time to get rid of the things you're actually deciding you're not going to do because really they're not that important. And although at one point in time, you thought that you should do it as time passes, you realize it's just not a priority for you. So you should just delete it off the list rather than having it launch you forever more.
00:04:42
Speaker
I agree. Those red herring things like you're just never going to do it. Let it go. Ask yourself why you're doing it. Why do you really want to do it? And James Clear, who writes a lot about habits and productivity, he talks about, you know, does this task actually need to fall to you? Can it be delegated? Do you really have to be the one to do it? And he says, how much of your to-do list is helping with the wants, needs and agendas of others?
00:05:05
Speaker
So this method's power is putting your most important work first rather than filling up your day with other people's needs.
Digital Tools for To-Do List Management
00:05:12
Speaker
So he's talking about prioritizing and how you categorize. And the other thing I think to keep in mind to do this is making sure your tasks are at the right size, that they're not these huge tasks that actually could be broken down into smaller steps to make them more achievable.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, for example, you don't want to just put do your taxes on your to-do list because the reality is it's not that simple. You've got to have multiple steps. And if you break it down into bite-sized chunks, you're more likely to get it done.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, one of my list items that's been there for months that was in the blind zone was just research Samoa, because I want to go on holiday to Samoa, but of course that is way too big a task. So I've checked, I've stepped that down. It's like, just start on TripAdvisor, just check out Samoa on TripAdvisor. And I'm going to tiptoe gently towards organizing that holiday.
00:06:03
Speaker
Great. So we talked about what you need to have on your to-do list. We also need to talk about what tools you might use to create and store your lists.
00:06:15
Speaker
So it's essential, I think, that the tool is digital. So although I used to have lots of paper lists all over the place, having one central digital tool that's available on your phone and on other devices is critical if you're going to have that single point of truth just like we have with our calendar.
00:06:36
Speaker
You also need to be able to share it with your partner. And I think if they're old enough, you need to be able to share those lists with your children. So a shout out to Megan, who listened to our pilot episode and said, you know, really, it shouldn't be a team of two sorting out life admin in a family. Really, you should be able to involve your children.
00:06:55
Speaker
And although my kids aren't old enough yet, I don't think for a to-do list app, they're definitely getting up there so it won't be long until I'm assigning them things to do as well as my husband.
Family Involvement in Life Admin: Why It Matters
00:07:07
Speaker
Absolutely. If they can build civilizations in Minecraft, I reckon they can handle a to-do list. My kids, yeah. Their Minecraft skills are pretty good. I feel like if I could put my list in Minecraft format somehow, a lot of stuff would get done around here.
00:07:23
Speaker
You need an incentive system. Minecraft Minutes for checking off an item. Maybe. Maybe. I've always liked, even when I've done lists in notebooks, because I usually have a notebook at work, I still write my lists with check boxes next to them so I can tick them off. Or I've been getting into the habit at work of writing my, I write the checklist, but then I will move it to another tool like Asana, which is the tool that we have been commonly used amongst my team.
00:07:52
Speaker
And there are so many digital tools you could use and most of them are free. So I think the most popular ones, if you don't already have one are Wunderlist, Todoist, Mayor mentioned Asana, Trello is another good one. There's also Google Tasks, which does integrate quite well with Gmail. Evernote is another one that people have talked about and Microsoft have a couple of products to do and others people use OneNote as well.
00:08:19
Speaker
And Evernote has a nice little collaboration going with Moleskine. There's a special Evernote Moleskine edition and you can take photos of your Moleskine notebook and it tags things up in Evernote. So for people who just love a nice bit of stationery, I hear you on that, but you can still get a digital version going with that. So Diana, you use Wunderlist. Tell us, tell me what your status quo was before we started thinking about how to do this a bit more wisely.
00:08:47
Speaker
I've been using Wunderlist for quite a while, but I guess as I've been going through this sort of life admin system refresh, I realized it definitely didn't have all of my to-do lists in one place. So the first step for me was going back to David Allen's system of capture
Personal Systems for Organizing To-Do Lists
00:09:05
Speaker
is capturing all of the to-do lists I had everywhere. So the one, the little magnetic notebook that was stuck on the fridge. I had a little notebook in my handbag and I spent some time
00:09:17
Speaker
Capturing everything from all of these lists but I also went through emails, I looked at my calendar, I walked around the house and I thought of all of the things that I really needed to have on a to-do list and I've got to tell you it was a pretty scary process.
00:09:34
Speaker
I've been using the reminders in my phone for my to-do list. But when I started thinking about this closely, I realized I had fallen into the trap of having a mishmash of to-dos and references and checklists. And I also realized that sometimes I was using reminders and sometimes I was using notes in my iPhone. So I'm in a definitive decision to use reminders.
00:09:59
Speaker
And so I had to spend some time getting things out of notes, transferring random things into notes to make sure that the things into do really were time bound and have action associated with them.
00:10:11
Speaker
And I use notes now for my evergreen or long-term lists. And I had notes for some reason splashed between the cloud version of my account and different email accounts. But now I have notes divided into my general notes, my crazy ideas, things related to music and things related to writing.
00:10:32
Speaker
And within notes, I have lists to do with, I have a gift wish list for each of my kids. I have specific lists for whether I need to do a hardware shop, a mall shop, a Costco shop or a pharmacy shop. So I just add things to those lists and they're shared with my husband. So if he's going off to Bunnings to get hardware,
00:10:53
Speaker
one of us happens to be going to Costco, we both have access to this one list. I have different lists for music or film or TV or books I wanted to check out and then I have other lists for packing and Christmas traditions and
00:11:08
Speaker
holiday house, stuff like that. So that's all separate from my actual to-do list, which is just tasks. And that took some time. I couldn't believe that it was such a mishmash. I've never really fallen into that trap with work. Work's always felt very defined in terms of using the team to-do tool. I've usually had work that's related to deadlines or dependencies on other people. So that
00:11:34
Speaker
Capturing all of those and organizing those has been a lot more straightforward than the chaos of personal life Yeah, I spent some time as I went through this process to make sure that I had the right sort of buckets or lists and I really do think it's worth investing some mental energy and thinking about this and although it couldn't evolve over time it's really important that you kind of have hard edges and
00:11:57
Speaker
So that's really makes it easy to know which item goes in which list. What do you mean by that? So don't create categories that could potentially overlap. So we're going to be distinct.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah. So David Allen suggests organizing your list by the nature of the task. So for example, things that you can do at your computer or errands you need to run. But I guess that didn't really work for me. And the lists I have are bills and finances.
Categorizing Tasks for Better Management
00:12:29
Speaker
So anything to do with financial affairs, I have in a separate list. And then I have other family admin in another list, which is
00:12:37
Speaker
know, like birthday party, organization, medical appointments, holiday bookings I need to do. And then I have a third list, which is just about a house and our garden. So any maintenance things that need to be done, any decluttering that I want to do, any deep cleaning that I want to schedule in. And then I have
00:13:01
Speaker
The shopping lists, just like you talked about before, Mayor, but I've divided those by the store. So Chadstone, which is my closest shopping mall, or whether it's an online shopping list of things that I know I can get online, or I've also got a sub-list for Officeworks.
00:13:19
Speaker
And then I guess I've got a list for other work that I do, unpaid work. So I'm on a basketball committee, so I've got a to-do list for all of my work relating to that, as well as a separate list for this podcast so that I can keep track of the action items I have there.
Enhancing Organization with Creative and Fun Lists
00:13:38
Speaker
And then I guess I've got inspired by you set up a whole bunch of more reference lists or checklists. So one with present ideas of things that I see that might be suitable for birthdays and Christmas.
00:13:52
Speaker
a holiday checklist, which I've titled, Lift Off, of all of the things you need to do to get out of the house. So, inspired by your holiday checklist, Mia. And I also have a fun list. And within that, I've got a bunch of sub lists. So, these are things that, you know... That's a lot of lists, daughter.
00:14:12
Speaker
It is a lot of lists, but it's really great to have it all in that one spot. So within that fun list, those are really kind of just reference things. So podcasts, TV, movies, books, even walks I want to go on, people who I want to organize a catch up with. And then I've kind of got a someday list of just anything that I'm interested in doing, like I really would like to do,
00:14:35
Speaker
one day that walk from Jono Grotes to lands in. And so I just put it in that someday list. And so maybe one day it'll inspire me to do something about it. Actually, I'm looking at my notes and I do have 30 in there related to random things. But when it comes to my actual to-do lists, I have two. I have one that's shared with my partner. So with the Reminder app on iPhone, you can actually share tasks within there. You can add someone to them.
00:15:02
Speaker
And there's actually got some cool functionality. You can get the task, you can set it to have a deadline, so you can set a day and a time, you can set a priority, and you can actually get it to remind you at a certain location. And this has been really useful if I have to, I always forget I need to buy things at the pharmacy. I'm still in denial that I need to buy things at a pharmacy. It's, so I'm going to hang over from you.
00:15:24
Speaker
But you set the location so that as I'm driving into the car park, into the supermarket complex where the pharmacy is, the reminder will actually come up on my phone and say, you know, remember to pick up, you're getting old lady pills.
00:15:39
Speaker
The other beautiful thing about the Reminders app is that you can use Siri to talk to the phone and have Siri add tasks to your reminders for you. So this is incredibly useful if you're in the car driving or for whatever reason your hands free and you just want to get talked to the phone and have Siri add the tasks automatically. So I'll give you an example of that. Hey Siri.
00:16:05
Speaker
Set a reminder for me to put the garbage bins out when I get home on Thursday night.
00:16:17
Speaker
So that's automatically set a task for me in my reminders. It has done the location. So it knows that when I get home and knows that location, the notification will come up on my phone. Or if I'm not home by seven o'clock, the notification will come up on my phone. And yes, my Siri is a guy because there's enough subservient female robots in the world. There are a few other ways that we looked at categorizing and prioritizing lists.
00:16:46
Speaker
So definitely that idea of having multiple tasks that cover different types of tasks. But Amanda Imba, who has the How I Work podcast, talked about categorizing tasks in terms of the mental and physical energy required, or the time it required and the intention it required. So she had four categories of how you might split up what you need to do. Things that are fast, so under five minutes, things you can do in your downtime, in between appointments or in between periods.
00:17:15
Speaker
Second one was focus. Things that require analytical thinking. And she suggested that you would do them in the morning when people are usually at their clearest and freshest. Then the third was foggy, which is the kind of things you do after lunch when you're in a bit of a food coma and you've got that energy slump. Any mindless tasks.
00:17:34
Speaker
you want to schedule for then. And then she had the fourth, which I can't believe she didn't think of a fourth F word. She called her creative period. Maybe we can call it fertile or fertile, just so it has four F's. And the creative period where it's the mid afternoon thing. So anything that requires a bit of free thinking, you might schedule then. Can I just go backwards a bit? Yeah.
00:18:01
Speaker
I do have to admit, Mia, that I do have one remaining paper list. Oh, what's on that? My guilty Kiki-K obsession. So on my fridge, I have still got my Kiki-K grocery shopping list. Yeah. And really, I've just decided I have to have that because I really like the kids having the... You like the stationery?
00:18:23
Speaker
Well, I like the stationery, but what I most like is instilling in the kids the discipline of adding things to that list. So if they finish the peanut butter, they need to add it to the list. And if they don't add it to the list, the peanut butter does not reenter the house. And so it's kind of teaching them the benefit of the list. And so I'm going to hang on to that grocery list on its Kiki K magnet for some time, I think. I do also have a
00:18:55
Speaker
shopping list on the fridge with a magnet. I think it's just a practical place to put it. Part of instilling new habits is making them as convenient as possible and having the right tools. So having the shopping list on the fridge so you can open it and go, there's no milk, close the fridge, write milk on the list. Or as you say, as soon as something's finished,
00:19:14
Speaker
you can just turn around and put it in. I think it's, you know, you're forgiven, Diana, for not being fully digital. That one makes sense to me too. Okay, good.
Time Management: Prioritizing Tasks Efficiently
00:19:22
Speaker
And also the stationery is really cute. It is. And it's also a great thing for people to buy me as a prison. So it's great. Oh, okay. Got that here.
00:19:33
Speaker
And obviously the other ways of categorizing lists, you've got your Seven Habits of Highly Effective People classic management book, productivity book, where you're prioritizing things in terms of urgency and importance. So just on that time, when things are due and how important is it?
00:19:52
Speaker
And then I came across another kind of a less sort of loosey-goosey approach where you can divide things into the musts and the shoulds and the wants. So the must would be your most immediate, important task. A should might be a task that contributes to a more long-term goal. And then the want is something that makes you happy, gives you a bit of joy because it can't all be slogging through house maintenance and finance and things you've got to buy at office works.
00:20:19
Speaker
So I do think you get that enormous sense of relief by putting all of these in your to-do lists, but really the success of it is actually using the to-do list to decide what you're going to do. And so I think there's two parts to that. There's one about making sure that you reflect on what's in your list so that you know
00:20:40
Speaker
So you really need to get into a habit of going to those lists. So for me, I do it every morning and I've sort of created that pairing. Gretchen Rubin talks about that as a really successful habit. So every morning when I have my coffee, I open my phone and rather than scroll through Facebook, which was my old habit, I scroll through both my calendar and my to-do lists just to refresh myself and to think about what I must do that day.
00:21:08
Speaker
Yeah. Do you ever find yourself, if you get unexpected free time, like suddenly someone's whisked away your children or you might have the house to yourself and you realize, I have three hours that I wasn't expecting to have to myself. What should I do? What should I do? Do you ever get those photos? And sometimes you think, you know what, I'm just going to lay on the couch and read a book.
00:21:30
Speaker
But sometimes it's nice to be able to have that to-do list and actually think, oh my gosh, I've got bonus time to get into some detail on something that I wasn't expecting to do now.
00:21:40
Speaker
Generally, as soon as that happens, I go to the list around TV and I can watch what I want. I'm the only person here. It's so rare. And I find a show that I want to watch because I can always read a book when the kids are here. I can always do something else, but I never feel like I can watch my sort of my TV show when there's other people in the house.
00:22:04
Speaker
I had a moment during the little sort of long weekend that we just had where I had this chunk of free time and I spent the time listening to music that people had been recommending to me that I hadn't had been able to just sit down and listen to a new album or listen to a new artist decide whether I liked it or not. I felt fantastic. I'm like yes 2018 I am actually going to discover some new bands that I like this year.
00:22:27
Speaker
So I've also got into the habit of making sure that I have once a week where I review both review my to do list, but also get get into any of the meaty tasks around what to do. And so for me, that's on a Sunday evening.
00:22:44
Speaker
I go through both my calendar for the next few weeks and I add to the list. I delete any completed items or remove things I'm never going to do. And I look at some day lists and think about who I might want to organize a catch up with and, you know, adjust priorities and due dates and really make sure that I'm keeping those lists up to date and current.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah, I tend to ad hoc tasks during the day as they arise. At the end of my work day, I always scan my list to make sure I've captured everything that's come up during the day and checked off things I've completed. And then I don't have a dump before I go to bed. I just have a quick look if anything else has come up in the evening after chats with family or
00:23:28
Speaker
I happen to achieve something after dinner, then I go through it again. And then I sort of schedule in the scheduling, if that makes sense. I will spend some time, you have to sort of, I think, allocate some time in the day to go through your tasks and work out when you're going to get to them the next day.
00:23:44
Speaker
So you actually have to schedule in that task to do that scheduling. But there's nothing more satisfying than crossing off those items. And a lot of the apps, especially like Asana, there are rainbows and unicorns when you check stuff off. They really are maximising and amplifying the pleasure they know people get from getting things done.
00:24:05
Speaker
And the other advantage of having these lists available on your phone is you can really make the use of any dead time that you've got. So in terms of sitting in the car waiting for a child to finish their gymnastics class, you can really think about, well, what can I check off that to-do list? And there are some principles you can have a think about in terms of deciding
00:24:27
Speaker
what you should do. And there's a four criteria model, and I really quite like this. So think about the context. So where are you if you're sitting in the car or you clearly can't do something super complicated, but you can do anything that's available to you on your phone. Think about how long you've got. You've got maybe 15 minutes until the class finishes. So what task could you do within that 15 minutes? Think about what amount of energy you've got available. So going back to Amanda's tips around fogginess.
00:24:56
Speaker
How energetic are you? How complicated a task do you want to take on? And then taking all those three things into account, make sure you pick the most important one, the highest priority item that you can manage given those other things. Yeah, I think about that when I've got days home with my sons. My son's at Kinda. He has a couple of days where I'm home with him. And I might have a to-do list with priorities in terms of urgency and
00:25:23
Speaker
things that be effective and make me happy. But I also have to take into account his energy and his mood and preferences and the fact that he actually needs some company during the day. So I have to look at my list and think, okay, what can I do while I'm sitting on the dining room table while he's playing Lego? Or what can I do in like a little 20 minute chunk in between wanting tea and getting to the playground or whatever we're doing?
00:25:45
Speaker
So while it would be nice to prioritize things purely in terms of my energy and priorities, yeah, the context of what else you got to get done that day needs to be a factor as well. Right. So Mia, why do you think that the to-do list system is so important?
Peace of Mind Through To-Do Lists
00:26:04
Speaker
Well, it comes down to time management, essentially, just to be able to manage your precious time better, to be more productive. I guess everybody,
00:26:13
Speaker
has highly scheduled lives these days and why I don't consider myself a particularly busy person. I try to have a lot of white space in my days. I do like to be effective. I want to know that I'm doing the right thing and I do like to be efficient in terms of making sure that my time and attention and energy are focused on the right thing.
00:26:36
Speaker
I think that's all really great reasons. I think the sort of main one for me is making sure that I don't have those things swirling around in my head anymore. The things I've forgotten. Yeah, the real peace of mind, making sure that I'm confident that I know what needs to be done and I know what the priorities are. Yeah. There's a few to-do list traps I think that people can fall into.
Avoiding Email Overload: Focus on Single-Tasking
00:26:59
Speaker
One of them is using your email inbox as your to-do list. And I know a lot of people who do this, but there are some definite cons to this approach. One is if basically emails, not designed to act as a task management list. So the functions that you would need to create or schedule a recurring task, they're not usually built within email. And there's also the danger that you might be distracted by incoming emails and obviously within your
00:27:26
Speaker
email, unless you've been very careful about paring it down, you're going to have emails that have tasks related to them mixed up with emails that don't require any further action. So looking at the literature out there, there's a strong recommendation not to use your email inbox as your to-do list. Yeah, and that reminds me, Mayor, of one thing that David Allen talks about is
00:27:48
Speaker
He has this idea, if you can do it in two minutes, don't add it to your list, just do it. And I think that that really should apply to email. So you really shouldn't open an email unless you've got two minutes so that you could actually action it. So don't fall into that trap of wanting to read each email as it comes in. Make sure that you've got a bit of time to action it. If it's gonna take longer than two minutes, add it to your to-do list. Otherwise, just do it on the spot and then it's done.
00:28:15
Speaker
Another great piece of advice is not to multitask. So while on the surface multitasking might seem an efficient way to go, single-tasking actually leads to greater productivity. So you can get into that flow state and focus your attention instead of the switching costs between moving between different activities. So just do one thing at a time. And another great piece of advice around getting through that to-do list is don't save difficult or long tasks for later in the day. It goes back to the eat the frog.
00:28:44
Speaker
maxim that you mentioned in one of the previous episodes. Basically tackle your hard tasks when you're fresh first thing in the morning and don't fall into the trap that thinking little early quick wins, quick tasks will motivate you. Just get into the biggie first thing. So that wraps us up with our take on to-do list. And we're going to do another episode where we focus a little more on scheduling and how to chunk up your time. But Diana,
00:29:11
Speaker
Give it to me, your life had me in the high of the week.
Life Admin: Tales of Triumph and Trials
00:29:14
Speaker
Oh, it's a great one. We just got back from a bit of a holiday up on the Gold Coast, had a great time. And normally the night before we're about to fly, I'm in a bit of a panic trying to gather the email where I booked the flight and where was the hotel booking and where's the theme park passes and did I book car parking and where's the hire car?
00:29:37
Speaker
But this time, every time I book something, I saved it into a folder in Google Drive called Holiday Bookings. So when I woke up to go to Queensland, it was all there in one place. It was so clear. I felt so organised. It was a great feeling. Beautiful. I'm still shuddering at the idea that you had to book car parking, but that sounds beautiful. And what about you, Mia? Did you have a high of the week?
00:30:04
Speaker
I have started Christmas shopping. I'm really feeling very organised for Christmas this year. We had this sort of surreptitious discussion with the kids about what they wanted from Santa. I'm like, oh, let's get your letters going, which let me finish off their wish lists from which I had in my notes.
00:30:22
Speaker
So I added that to a spreadsheet, which is in Google Drive, which has the sort of gift ideas and allocations for the different family members. And I started the online shopping. We're having our Christmas with my partner's parents interstate. So we're getting a lot of the gifts just sent there directly.
00:30:40
Speaker
And I've actually started gift wrapping a couple of things and stashing them in the cupboard. So I just feel like I've got time to find good gifts and good prices and it's just rolling straight ahead. Great.
00:30:57
Speaker
How about a life admin low? Did you have an annoying task this week? I did. I've started to really get into online grocery shopping and I'm finding that a really efficient use of my time because I kind of saved the list and can get my shopping sort of knocked over in 15 minutes, have it delivered straight to my door. But last week I was doing it. I got interrupted. I forgot to finish the shopping and then by the time I went back to it,
00:31:23
Speaker
the time to get the delivery in time had passed and so I'd spent the time on doing 80% of it and then I couldn't actually get it delivered so I had to go to the supermarket anyway. So it was really frustrating.
00:31:38
Speaker
I'd actually abandoned online shopping. The supermarket that I was using, one of the big two, I shall name which one. They just never actually delivered in the delivery window. So I would be hanging at home for, you know, two or three hours and I'd always get a text message from the van driver saying, I'm sorry, it's too busy. And I, like, this is pointless if it can't come when it's supposed to. I'm almost ready to try again, like, because it is so...effective. I think if you can make the delivery window when you know you're going to be home anyway, then it doesn't really
00:32:07
Speaker
Wow, I used to get between like six and nine a.m. Six a.m. to nine a.m. so I could just get to work. And then it wouldn't come. I'd be like, I've got to go to work. It was ridiculous. Anyway. And what about you, Mia? What was your life had in love of the week? Oh, nothing crazy for me this week except a few technical hiccups with our shared calendar system. So for some reason, it hasn't been syncing between Outlook and iOS.
00:32:32
Speaker
then up Microsoft have been playing nicely. Uh, so there's been a few unseen events and changes and because for some reason these accounts come with their own birthdays calendar and Australian holidays default calendars, there's just so many fricking calendars. So a little troubleshooting required. I'm sure my help desk slash husband will sort it out, but it's just a bit annoying at the moment. It's a bit, yeah, we'll get on to it.
Scheduling Made Easy with Doodle
00:33:00
Speaker
This week, we also have a power tool. Diana, tell me about this power tool. We've been using it a lot between our movie club mates. Yeah, it's a great one. So it's called Doodle, and it's an app and a website application that you can use to organize a date for an event with multiple people. So I've actually downloaded the Doodle app onto my phone so quick.
00:33:25
Speaker
I can send out to a group of friends or I even use it for like basketball committee meetings, suggest a whole bunch of dates and times. People can vote on which ones suit them and it makes it so much quicker and easier to find the best date for events and it's so much better than the old sort of email warfare that used to go on. Oh my god. I can't stand it.
00:33:52
Speaker
When you throw in an email, you throw a handful of dates out there, and then everyone replies separately saying, I can do the fifth, but I can't do the eleventh. Oh, I could do Sunday, but I prefer the Tuesday. And walking through the trail of responses is just a nightmare. So I love the fact that Doodle's gives you the grid of choices. Everybody votes, and you can quickly see which dates and times.
00:34:15
Speaker
or any option really doesn't have to be for dates necessarily, but which ones are going to work. It's a good tool right in time for this silly season where everyone tries to catch up with each other.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great one. I actually think that in the past I used to give up trying to organise events just simply because it was too hard. And so it's really meant that it sort of revolutionised inviting more people to a group get together because I think in the past I couldn't be bothered inviting them all just knowing it would be too hard. Give up from seeing your friends through this sheer frustration of not being able to find a date within like 13 emails to each other.
00:34:53
Speaker
Correct. You know what I'm saying? Time is precious. It is. So I'm loving doodle, so get on it. You're loving doodle? Sorry. Got a humour. Let's wrap this up before it gets crazy.
Finding the Right Tools for Task Management
00:35:10
Speaker
Try out these life hacks on to-do lists this week. Find a tool that works for you and capture all your tasks comprehensively in this one place. Make sure your to-do list contains only tasks and create reference lists and checklists for things that don't have a deadline or are evergreen. Review and prioritise the to-do lists tasks daily and delete those that really don't matter.
00:35:36
Speaker
If you'd like to join us on our Life Admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, Life Admin Life Hacks, to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing. And feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.