Scheduling, planning and follow-through. Some questions

Posted by Chris Murtland
May 18, 2014 at 04:45 PM

I’m starting to like to use checklists that are reviewed at different frequencies. For instance, I have morning, afternoon, evening, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly checklists. Other lists are triggered by something other than time; e.g., a project start or project end checklist.

What I like about this is that it provides a simple but robust framework for getting myself to do certain things on a regular basis and simply reminding me to do valuable things. For example, I might decide to review the status of all my projects every Monday or every afternoon; another example is to spend some time working on my most valuable project every morning. The content of the examples is nothing unique, but the point is that the recurring checklist framework helps me stick to good productivity ideas I’ve read or discovered for myself. I can also change what happens and when by simply modifying a plain list, so it’s very flexible. It’s iterative, in that I can redesign my day or week by modifying my checklists at those levels, so I never feel stuck doing something just because it once seemed a good idea.

I use Workflowy for this because of its paper-like nature, ubiquitous access, and ease of making reusable lists, but it seems like pretty much any software that can list items - or even paper - could be used.