Scheduling Techniques

Hi everyone!

I don't know about you, but whenever someone asks me how I schedule my day, I always have to pause for a minute.

One of the biggest misconceptions about being organized is that there's only 1 way to do it, and if you learn that way, you'll be just fine. However, if you're anything like me, not only do you have multiple scheduling/organizational systems, but you hop back and forth between them!

Personally, my brain learns to ignore/tune out whatever system I happen to be using after a period of time, so having just 1 system would be disastrous for me!

So how do I schedule my time? Here are just a few of the methods that I use:


Outlook Calendar - Good for everything: this has been my longest-lasting method.
Pros:

• It allows me to schedule recurring tasks so that I don't have to remember to write them down every day (a big plus for me!).
• With color-coding and visual blocks of time, it lets me visually see how much of each day was spent on which projects.
• I can look back months, or even years to see everything that I've done and all of the progress that I've made.
• It's very easy to move tasks around, so that I can adjust my schedule and keep everything up-to-date as things change throughout my day.
• It's easy to change what you have written for each task.
• You can take notes in each tasks so that everything is together in1 place - yay organization!

Cons:

• You have to be very good about updating it constantly to keep everything accurate.
• If you have a lot of small projects, moving things around constantly can be a hassle.
• If you cancel a recurring task, it goes back in time and adjusts the ones that you previously moved to update your schedule, and puts them back where they were before you moved them.
• If you want to keep recurring tasks, but don't want to do them for a length of time (say, a week or a month), you have to manually delete all of them from your calendar... and my Outlook has a tendency to double everything that I have selected instead of deleting it. -_-

Spreadsheets - Good for lists, bad for tracking individual days
Pros:

• It's relatively easy to move tasks around.
• You can color-code your tasks.
• It's easy to change what you have written for each task.
• You can organize your list/schedule/etc. any way that you want.

Cons:

• It is difficult to track days separately without making 50 million tabs.
• You will need to make multiple saved files the longer you use this method.
  
• You will need to paste recurring tasks over and over and over and over and over again.
• You have to be very careful with how you place your color coding, because coloring an entire row or column each time will drastically increase your file size.
• You'll probably have to scroll in 1 (or both) directions... a lot.

Hand-written Sticky Notes - Good for lists with groups of tasks
Pros:

• You can move tasks around easily IF you have 1 task per sticky note.
  
• You can group similar tasks on 1 sticky note and move them around together.
• You can color-code tasks (or task groups) with differently colored sticky notes and pens.
  
• You can organize your list/schedule/etc. any way that you want.
• You get the satisfaction of physically crossing things off of a list and throwing paper away.

Cons:

• Once something is written down, it's there. You have to make a new sticky note if you want to:
  • rearrange items in the list
  • get rid of all of the items that you've completed
  • change the color-coding of an individual item (or a few) or the group as a whole
    
  • change anything else about your list
• Tracking tasks based on days, weeks, months, etc. while ALSO having individual tasks to check off per day is almost impossible... and will drain your bank account, because...
  
• You go through a lot of sticky notes.
• You might need a fairly large wall patch to place your sticky notes on.
• Sometimes they don't stick and you get "non-sticky notes".
• Trying to look back over your previous lists is sort of unpleasant, if even possible.

Virtual Sticky Notes - Used the least: good for lists
Pros:

• You can move tasks around easily.
• It's easy to change what you have written for each task.
• You can group similar tasks by sticky note.
• You can delete tasks as they are finished.
  
• You can organize your list/schedule/etc. any way that you want.

Cons:

• Depending on your program, you won't be able to make use of any sort of color-coding.
• Tracking tasks based on days, weeks, months, etc. while ALSO having individual tasks to check off per day is... interesting... you won't have ANY room on your desktop, period.
• You will need to paste recurring tasks over and over and over and over and over again.
• Depending on your program, you may not be able to cross off completed tasks, meaning that you can't track what you've already done without additional hassle or personal short-hand/code/text on those tasks
• You'll probably have to scroll in 1 (or both) directions... a lot.
• Trying to look back over your previous lists is sort of unpleasant, if even possible.

Hand-written To-do Lists - Good for lists with lots of small tasks
Pros:

• You can color-code tasks with colored pens.
  
• You can organize your list/schedule/etc. any way that you want.
• You get the satisfaction of physically crossing things off of a list and throwing paper away.

Cons:

• Once something is written down, it's there. You have to make a new list if you want to:
  • rearrange items in the list
  • get rid of all of the items that you've completed
  • change the color-coding of an individual item (or a few)
    
  • change anything else about your list
• Tracking tasks based on days, weeks, months, etc. while ALSO having individual tasks to check off per day is almost impossible.
• You go through a lot of paper.
  
• Trying to look back over your previous lists is sort of unpleasant, if even possible.

Digital To-do Lists - Good for lists with lots of small tasks
Pros:

• You can move tasks around easily.
• It's easy to change what you have written for each task.
• You can delete tasks as they are finished.
• Depending on your program, you may be able to:
  • use color-coding
  • cross off finished tasks and have them move to the bottom of the list instead of being deleted

Cons:

• You have no real control over how you organize things - it has to be just a list.
• Depending on your program, you may not be able to:
  • make use of any sort of color-coding.
  • cross off completed tasks, meaning that you can't track what you've already done without additional hassle or personal short-hand/code/text on those tasks
• Tracking tasks based on days, weeks, months, etc. while ALSO having individual tasks to check off per day is doable, but complicated.
• You will need to paste recurring tasks over and over and over and over and over again.
• Trying to look back over your previous lists is sort of unpleasant, if even possible.
  
• You'll probably have to scroll in 1 (or both) directions... a lot.

Evernote (courtesy of Alessandro Zamboni) - Good for tasks, projects and contents to keep away.
Pros:

• You can place your notes in different folders (for example one for projects, one for things to do, one with the invoices, etc…)
• You can archive tasks with tags to find them quickly.
• You can move tasks up and down in the timeline, or leave them in the date that you opened them in.
• You can write your notes, or import items and text with the browser widget.
• You can archive also PDF files, html files, invoices for accountants, email, and so on.
• You can use it for free without any problem, even if it provides a paid solution.
• You can use the same account on pc, mac, cell phones, and tablets to have your lists always available 24 hours a day.

Cons:

• When you start using it, it's difficult to stop, as you become addicted.
• If you don't open it and check it out on daily basis, it won't help.
• Over time you will archive a lot of stuff.
• Your projects, notes and tasks are online and are subject to hacker's attacks (learn to think the worst, and be always prepared).

Hand-written Whiteboard To-do Lists - Used infrequently: good for lists with lots of small, frequently-changing tasks
Pros:

• You can color-code tasks with colored pens.
• You can change the color-coding fairly easily (erase and rewrite the item)
• You can change what is written for each item fairly easily (erase and rewrite the item)
  
• You can organize your list/schedule/etc. any way that you want.
• You get the satisfaction of physically crossing things off of and/or erasing items off of a list.

Cons:

• Once something is written down, it's a bit difficult to move. You have to find an empty space or make a new list if you want to rearrange items in the list.
• Tracking individual tasks for any length of time over a few days is more or less impossible.
• You need a whiteboard (or a few), pens, cleaner, and erasers.
  
• Trying to look back over your previous lists isn't really possible without buying a LOT of whiteboards.

So, those are some of the methods that I jump between, depending on the project and how long I've been using my current system.

How about you? How do you schedule your time?

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