To-Do Lists – Organise Yourself

Can PDAs Help Organise Yourself?

There’s lots of different ways to organise yourself – there’s probably more ways to do it than there are people… Personally, I’ve always been one for high-tech toys, the fascination started many years ago now. Lately I’ve been playing with a PDA device that I have had for a few months now. I’m only just understanding how powerful these things can be to structure and organise yourself and your life.

Over the last couple of days I’ve started using it to log my tasks – you can assign yourself things to do and check them off when they’re finished. It’s possible to add deadlines, mark things with different priorities etc. I’m sure anyone who has used Microsoft Outlook has played with these tools – but how effectively have you used them to organise yourself?

It struck me today that I am quite excited about these task lists and first I wondered if this was due to the new toy I am playing with. The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that my excitement is proportional to my desire and enjoyment in the tasks. It boiled down to this: When you have a to-do list that only contains things that you really want to do, you can’t help but be excited about it. You pretty much organise yourself anyway!

So all that there is to an effective, organised life, is to do what you love doing and do lots of it.

Updating this organise yourself article…

Every now and again I revise and rewrite my articles – particularly if they are out of date, or if I’ve found new ways of doing things that are more effective. Right now, I hardly use my PDA or phone (or whatever it’s called these days) to organise myself – the only thing on there is a calendar. The thing that is still true and I guess always will be is that the best way to organise yourself, or at least to want to do it, is to fill your day with stuff you really want to do! Sometimes that means finding joy in the tasks you “have” to do (boss, work etc.), but other times it means removing as many tasks as you can that don’t add value to your life or business. If you get the fundamental basics right – the why you are doing what you are doing and the understanding of what you are getting out of doing it… it’s a doddle to organise yourself!