Many years ago when I had just gotten out of an individual role to a role of leading teams, I struggled to keep track of my activities on account of poor time management. I guess this is a common phase for most people as they rise in the hierarchy. You would have heard of managers telling about the importance of multitasking and thrusting loads of parallel work on you. Even if you are fortunate to not having faced this at work, it is inevitable to face multitasking on the personal / home front. Several things need your attention, and some things must be finished before a deadline.
Years ago I attended a "Time Management" talk (a small session that talked about the basics). As is the case with most such trainings, the learnings were quite common sense - such as planning out a day's work at the start of the day, prioritizing activities, and things like that. One thing that struck me was the use of a PDA (those were the days when mobiles had not yet caught on) for maintaining TODO lists.
Some years later I did buy a Linux PDA (Sharp Zaurus), but never got around to using it on a daily basis. Some years after I bought my first mobile phone, I started using it for reminders. Every TODO activity (personal and work related) was maintained as a reminder. I continue using this approach even today. I find it to be extremely beneficial. Along with the convenient "Snooze" for the reminders, I feel I have never missed an important deadline.
I know that there are apps that allow one to synchronize one's desktop calendar (Outlook, etc.) with the cell phone calendar, but I haven't gotten around to that point yet. Looking back at these years, I find this simple solution has worked wonders for my problem.
On an ending note, for some time management tips (targeted for grad school, but can be of use to others as well), there's the Time Management talk by Randy Pausch. There's one equation in the presentation that sums it up:
Years ago I attended a "Time Management" talk (a small session that talked about the basics). As is the case with most such trainings, the learnings were quite common sense - such as planning out a day's work at the start of the day, prioritizing activities, and things like that. One thing that struck me was the use of a PDA (those were the days when mobiles had not yet caught on) for maintaining TODO lists.
Some years later I did buy a Linux PDA (Sharp Zaurus), but never got around to using it on a daily basis. Some years after I bought my first mobile phone, I started using it for reminders. Every TODO activity (personal and work related) was maintained as a reminder. I continue using this approach even today. I find it to be extremely beneficial. Along with the convenient "Snooze" for the reminders, I feel I have never missed an important deadline.
I know that there are apps that allow one to synchronize one's desktop calendar (Outlook, etc.) with the cell phone calendar, but I haven't gotten around to that point yet. Looking back at these years, I find this simple solution has worked wonders for my problem.
On an ending note, for some time management tips (targeted for grad school, but can be of use to others as well), there's the Time Management talk by Randy Pausch. There's one equation in the presentation that sums it up:
Bad Time Management = Stress
2 comments:
So Ramdas, which application do you use on your new android phone to track the tasks? I use ColorNote for the same and am curious to know which application you are using.
Actually, I haven't yet started using my Nexus S as a phone; I am still using my Nokia.
And, there is no special app that I use to track the todo lists - just a simple reminder using the regular Calendar application that comes in the stock Nokia phones.
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