Crystal Clear Task Lists - Time Management Tip
In his book Get Organized! Time Management for School Leaders, Frank Buck provides tools and techniques to bring order and control to your busy life as a school leader. A tip from the book is below.
Crystal Clear Task Lists
No one knows who originally thought up the idea of the to-do list. More than likely, as soon the first such list grew to more than about five items, the question arose, “How do I know which one to do right now?” Certainly, every one of us can generate a list of our obligations that far exceeds what can be accomplished by the end of the day. Having some way to organize a laundry list of tasks into a doable game plan is the challenge.
Examine your own list. How many of those items really take a number of steps to complete? How many lack all the information necessary to accomplish them? How many of the tasks are simply ambiguous and leave you at a loss to where to begin? When someone looks at a list and sees two items—a difficult one and an easy one—human nature dictates choosing the easy one. Buy shoestrings wins out over solve world hunger every time because we know exactly how to go about buying shoestrings. Solving world hunger, like so many other goals we may have, is large and undefined. We really do not know where to begin.
The first rule of composing an organized task list is to make each task crystal clear. The list below provides an example of a list where clear tasks are intermingled with goals that require multiple steps.
The list below provides a list that will actually stand a chance of being accomplished.
What makes the tasks in the second crystal clear? They possess the following characteristics:
Visit Frank Buck's blog.
Crystal Clear Task Lists
No one knows who originally thought up the idea of the to-do list. More than likely, as soon the first such list grew to more than about five items, the question arose, “How do I know which one to do right now?” Certainly, every one of us can generate a list of our obligations that far exceeds what can be accomplished by the end of the day. Having some way to organize a laundry list of tasks into a doable game plan is the challenge.
Examine your own list. How many of those items really take a number of steps to complete? How many lack all the information necessary to accomplish them? How many of the tasks are simply ambiguous and leave you at a loss to where to begin? When someone looks at a list and sees two items—a difficult one and an easy one—human nature dictates choosing the easy one. Buy shoestrings wins out over solve world hunger every time because we know exactly how to go about buying shoestrings. Solving world hunger, like so many other goals we may have, is large and undefined. We really do not know where to begin.
The first rule of composing an organized task list is to make each task crystal clear. The list below provides an example of a list where clear tasks are intermingled with goals that require multiple steps.
Unclear Task List
Supplies?
Improve math curriculum
Money for music program
Maintain computer
Orders?
Get summer school going
The list below provides a list that will actually stand a chance of being accomplished.
Crystal Clear Task List
Mills: Want to teach summer school?
Carter: Schedule observation
Room 102: Check on heat
Acme 555–8312: Check on status of order
Register for math workshop 555–7646
Run SpyBot
Research sources for music grants
Outline ABC report
Compose blog post in use of ALEX
What makes the tasks in the second crystal clear? They possess the following characteristics:
- Crystal clear tasks include verbs. Verbs are the doing part of speech. Read a crystal clear task and you know exactly what it is you are supposed to do. Clarifying what is to be done on the front end increases the chances that you will know what to do when you see that task on the list later in the week.
- Crystal clear tasks can be accomplished in one sitting and ideally can be accomplished in a few minutes. Overly burdensome tasks tend to sit idle on lists whereas those that are easy to do get done. The trick is to break big jobs into tasks that are small enough that they are accomplished in a short period of time.
- Crystal clear tasks have all needed information at hand. If the task is a phone call, the crystal clear task has the phone number already written down. The agenda for the phone call is already written out.
- Crystal clear tasks can be done now, without something else having to happen first. If something else must happen first, that is the task to appear on the list.
Visit Frank Buck's blog.
Very useful information! Thank you!
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Great information
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Remember, the focus of time management is actually changing your behaviors, not changing time. A good place to start is by eliminating your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a goal that you're not going to take personal phone calls while you're working
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Nice job, it’s a great post. The info is good to know!
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Hey...The article posted by you is really the great one.
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Nice job, it’s a great post. The info is good to know!
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How long have you been in this field? You seem to know a lot more than I do, I’d love to know your sources!
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Don’t stop blogging! It’s nice to read a sane commentary for once...
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