How to be an organised person on lengths of time an order of a week

[jack]

Often people who play computer games complain that life lacks appropriate hacks. But it does; we're just used to them.

Look at, for instance, Casimir effect. Who on earth would have expected that? Free pressure, generated from nothing. But it happens, someone figured it out, and eventually will be exploited.

The same mentally. Is it cheating to not have strength of will? Somewhat. It's certainly better to be strong, and then you can be in unexpected occasions as well. Then again, you might as well get things done in the meantime.

I used to be hopeless. I'd let emails, bills, work, everything pile up until I responded in a rush.

My current habit is that everything that has to be done, is essentially a unit task (ie. requiring little decision, and about 1/2 hr or less), I assign to a day at some point in the future when it arrives. Anything I want to put off more, I assign to next month. I categorise things into such tasks; 'Q something' -- where I need to decide something; and '#' where I lump a compound task to be broken down later.

Then on any given day, I have up to half a dozen, and can do them without worrying about any of the others. It's easy, it works.

It works for me. Specifically, most things at home *are* such simple tasks. At work, or writing, or programming, I need decent structure. And none are hard in themselves. And there few are enough that I generally do have time to do them all. If you differ, you may need something else.

Why does it work? Well, five years ago, I could keep everything I needed to do in my head. Later, I couldn't, but still had the habit of doing so, so generally ended up with a scribbled mess in my mind at the bottom of the list, containing things I'd forgotten until they became urgent. But knowing that there's nothing being lost, and I don't have to do 20 things, just 5, enables me to do them easily and without fuss.

It's like extelligence; I use the paper (ok, text file on server or gmail) as an extension of my mind. And by writing it down remember it better anyway, if I need to. Of course, some people are naturally orgnaised. But then, successful people have their own systems. Who is to know I'm not? Only me, people who know me well, and people who take away my crutches :)

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

extelligence

splendid word. is it your own, or come from somewhere?

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I've seen it in books by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Science of Discworld, Pratchett, Cohen, Stewart. Though I don't know if it's an older term. And I think there's a proper term for it somewhere.

They use it to describe things like culture, and passed-on learning, and memes, and records, and technology. We may have reached the limits of intellegence, but can still progress in extelligence. And can't communicate easily with someone with a different extelligence.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

My friend David, he of the knickers, keeps lists of things to do. These lists work very well as long as he remembers to put everything on them in the first place.

Occasionally I have to remind him to put "sleep" on the list.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I haven't got that far, but I do put downtime (reading etc) down. That's for my next in the series: "Pretending to be an organised person on the order of a day."

These lists work very well as long as he remembers to put everything on them in the first place.

Crucially, I have exactly one place. Paper just doesn't work for me ever. But so long as I never have overlapping lists filled with old junk I didn't do, it's ok. And I remember to put things on at least as much as I can do them. Things to do arising from emails (eg. reply) are moved on when the email arrives, or when it's moved from the inbox. Other things as I think of them. I have trained myself in a reflex -- whenever I think "I don't need to write this down, there's only two (or one) things to do, I can just do it," I write it down, just in case I'm wrong.

[mair_in_grenderich]

My friend David, he of the knickers

oh, now! care to explain that for the rest of us? :)

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Whoops - I apologise! David is the owner of this site, and I have done a fair bit of work assisting him with it. For instance, I wrote large chunks of the fitting advice, not to mention various stuff such as data entry and picture editing.

[mhw.livejournal.com]

But it happens, someone figured it out, and eventually will be exploited.

And in short order taxed. There's no such thing as a free zero-point energy :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Read "The Gods Themselves" :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Genius! You have rediscovered the to-do list.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And I have great envy for people for whom a list is sufficient, and never end up with lots of different lists, and never get intimidated by the length of the list, and have a natural sense of what to leave for two days and what to do now. But I needed to be a lot more stern with myself, as you see.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

That's why people used to write it on small bits of paper and stick it to the fridge with magnets, so you can rearrange it according to how important things are.