Fruitful Time

Gaetano sent me a link to screen shots of his companies application FruitfulTime.  It is a windows based task management system.

Tuesday’s Tip: Dry Erase Marker

Dry erase markers are wonderful inventions. Not only can you use them to write on the special dry erase boards, but they also work well on glass. You can use this to leave notes in some pretty interesting places.

For example, you can write notes on your bathroom mirror where you will be sure to see it in the morning. The window in your office can also serve as a nice impromptu whiteboard. I have a large desk made from a thick sheet of glass over a frame, so I can use dry erase markers to write directly on my desktop.

Obviously having everything you write in a neat wooden framed whiteboard is less messy and looks more organized, but sometimes doing something out of the ordinary is what it takes to get results that are out of the ordinary.

8 Habit List Usage Ideas

We’ve had some great response to the Habit List post. Remember, if you haven’t downloaded your copy of the list, it is available in the RSS feed and in the email subscription. Simply subscribe to the site and there will be a link at the bottom of each post.

Here are several usage ideas for the Habit List:

1. Negative Items - If there is something you are trying not to do, you can add it to the list as negative item.  For example, “Didn’t watch TV” could be one of the items on the list.
2. Different Lists for Different Places - Part of the idea of the Habit List is to let you focus on your tasks with habit type items out of the way.  If your habit list gets long, you might want to use different lists separated by where you will use them.  For example, you might have one list for exercise, another list for work, and a third for your home stuff.
3. Teaching Your Kids - The Habit List also makes a great way to track those little things you want to do to help your kids learn.  For example, you might have an item for going over the alphabet with your toddler each day, or sitting down and reading a book.
4. Kid Chores - The Habit List can also be a great way to help your children remember chores.  Items like “make your bed”, “brush your teeth”, and “do homework” are all great candidates for the list.  When I was growing up, my mom made lists like this for us.  If you have access to a large printer, you can even print the list out in a large wall calendar size.
5. Did and Didn’t markings - Normally you want to place a check in the box when you accomplish an item and leave it blank when you didn’t.  However, if you find yourself slacking, you might consider putting an X or some other mark in the box for items you didn’t do.  This helps keep the undone item from being entirely passive.  If it is something simple you may find that you’d rather go ahead and quickly do it so you don’t have to give yourself a “bad” mark.
6. Keep it Visible - Personally I’ve found that if my Habit List gets covered up, I stop thinking about it.  Be sure to keep it somewhere visible where you can see it.  If you just set it on your desk where it will get covered with other papers, it is easy to start ignore it.  By putting it on the wall or somewhere else where you can easily see it, your brain will notice it and think about the tasks on the page–even if you aren’t consciously looking at it.
7. Tell Someone Else - One of the best ways to increase the number of habits you check of each day, is to take a few minutes and explain it to someone else.  You can show it to a co-worker, friend, spouse, etc. To your subconscious this will elevate the importance of the list and help solidify it as a priority.
8. Don’t Break the Chain - Part of the idea of the Habit List is to have a light weight list of things you want to do on a regular basis, but where it doesn’t matter if things are skipped every once in a while.  There are some habits where you don’t want to ever skip a day. For Seinfeld one of those habits was taking some time to write jokes.  Here is an article about how Seinfeld used a method similar to the Habit List to improve his jokes.  (Thanks to Collin for sending me the link.)  You can accomplish the same thing by having a section of your list of items where you don’t want to break the chain and another section for things that just need done every once in a while.  I would suggest putting the really important items at the top of the list and fill downward and the less important items at the bottom and fill upward. That keeps them separate, but allows you to add new items if necessary without running out of room.

Habit List

Note: The PDF mentioned in this post is now available as part of the Habit List Course. You can enroll using the form below:

Name:
Email:

Earlier I talked about the “Habit List” I’ve been using. I wanted to walk people through the tool and show you how it works in this post. First lets revisit the theory behind it.

This tool was created with the premise that “habit” type tasks should not be on our regular todo list. There are several reasons that keeping these types of items on your regular todo list is a bad idea.

1. “Habit” tasks tend to obscure the most important tasks that have to be done.
2. The value of a habit, is measured over time–not just a particular day. Regular todo lists don’t allow for this.
3. When your todo list is full of “habits” it is easy to get discouraged when you have a particularly busy day because the focus is on that day instead of your overall lifestyle.

The Habit List is designed to show you how you are doing an entire month at a time. The idea was to create a light weight tool that makes it easy to focus on whether or not you are regularly practicing your list of habits and minimizes the focus on a particular day. In other words, if I don’t exercise on a particular day, it really isn’t a big deal. What I want to watch for are times where I don’t exercise for an entire week.

Here is a shot of the entire Habit List:

In the upper left hand corner is a place to put your name, the date, and the context. The context is in case you want to have multiple lists for different areas. For example, you might use one list just for exercise and another for your reading plan. most people are probably going to be fine with just a single list.

Each task is listed on a row with a square for each day in the month.

Each day, you check off habits as you practice/complete them. There is nothing wrong with skipping over an item if you can’t fit it in on a particular day. However, the Habit List lets you see at a glance if there are any areas where you may be slacking off.

At the bottom of each day, there is a place to total how many habits you were able to practice. There is also a place to note your daily target if it helps encourage you.

At the end of each month, each task has a place to total the number of times you were able to practice it. This is just to give you a quick checkup to make sure you are practicing the things that are important to you. It lets you see if your time is being spent in a way that aligns with your priorities.

Here is a thumbnail that will take you to a larger screen shot of the entire example Habit List.

The idea is that the tool should be extremely light weight and flexible. It took me a little longer to make it available because I had added a bunch of features to it. When I stopped and looked at what I had done I thought, “Wait a minute, I would personally never use all this extra stuff.” So I simplified it back to the system that I’m actually using.

I’m making the PDF available for download, but there is a catch. I’m going to add it to the bottom of the RSS feed to help encourage people to subscribe. It will also show up as a link in the bottom of the daily emails from Productivity501. If you want the PDF, but just can’t bring yourself to subscribe to the RSS feed or email, don’t worry. I’ll probably put it up on the site in a week or so, but for now I want to make it available exclusively to current and new RSS/email subscribers.

Two Task Lists

Franklin Covey (formerly Franklin Quest) training teaches you to keep all of your todo items in one place.  I don’t think this is the best approach.  I think it is important to separate your important todo items from your list of “habit” type tasks.  For example, if I have a todo item of paying my taxes, it doesn’t seem that this should be on the same list as exercise.  If I miss a day of exercise, it isn’t a big deal.  In fact I expect to miss a few days of exercise here and there.  However, paying my taxes isn’t one of those things I can miss.  It should be on my list of things that absolutely have to get done.

Exercise and things like that are more of habits that I want to practice on a regular basis, but I can skip if I need to.  Most peopel try to deal with this by prioritizing their tasks.  The problem is that you still end up with everything on the same list even though there is something fundamentally different about “habit” type tasks.  For these type of regularly recurring items, you need to see how you are doing over time more than you need to see a particular day.  That is why I like keeping these type of items in a grid that lets me see at a glance how I’m doing for the month. The priorities on each item can change depending on how I’m doing.  So if I haven’t exercised for a week, it becomes more important.

I have a paper based tool I use for this “habit list” that I’ll be making available later next week, so watch for it if this sounds like something you’d be interested in.

The Sacred Todo List

Everyone is familiar with a todo list, but most people don’t really understand the importance of having a list of the things you want to accomplish. Creating a todo list is creating a list of goals. The list tells you what you need to do to achieve some larger outcome in your life. The power isn’t so much in the list itself, but in the overall goal it helps you to achieve.

A list is a way to break down your life goals into easy manageable steps that you can complete in a specific amount of time. In this sense, your list becomes a guide showing you how to succeed in life.

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