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Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

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Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#41

Post by tiffanyh »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #35

If one's Calendar is so scheduled like the one seen in the picture in the article, one need re-think their life. I've also moved to Calendar quite a while back but my target is to have as much free time each day to push and pull things around. No more dependent on tools but learn the ideas/patterns from a bunch of them. I still use the Native macOS Apps as my triad - Calendar, Notes, and Reminder. I do have a running…

> If one's Calendar is so scheduled like the one seen in the picture in the article, one need re-think their life

You might be missing the point of the article.

Instead of them creating “to do” lists, they simply create it as an entry in their calendar.

If you look at the calendar, there’s very few actual meetings (blue).

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:828/format:webp/1*5rka...

The picture is deceiving. Their calendar is in fact very open (since blue is only their true meetings).

Green is just blocks of time that are needless entrees on their calendar (like sleep).

And the bulk of their calendar is just todos they have scheduled to do for themselves.

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#42

Post by johnorourke »

No single method suits everyone - it's why books like GTD help a little but only for some. My child has about 10 things to do every week, so her memory is mostly enough. I have about 20 things to do every day, so I use a combo of list and schedule.

This book is my bible - it teaches you how to create your own ideal time management system based on your brain, your life's demands and so on: Perfect Time-based Productivity by Francis Wade[1]

[1] https://perfect.mytimedesign.com/

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#43

Post by Brajeshwar »

tiffanyh wrote: post #41
Brajeshwar wrote: post #35

If one's Calendar is so scheduled like the one seen in the picture in the article, one need re-think their life. I've also moved to Calendar quite a while back but my target is to have as much free time each day to push and pull things around. No more dependent on tools but learn the ideas/patterns from a bunch of them. I still use the Native macOS Apps as my triad - Calendar, Notes, and Reminder. I do have a running…

> If one's Calendar is so scheduled like the one seen in the picture in the article, one need re-think their life You might be missing the point of the article. Instead of them creating “to do” lists, they simply create it as an entry in their calendar. If you look at the calendar, there’s very few actual meetings (blue). https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:828/format:webp/1*5rka... The picture is deceiving. Their…

I did understood. I meant, when you are free, don't schedule the free slots -- by default the no slots in the Calendars are free -- leave it blank.

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#44

Post by scrapheap »

zipping1549 wrote: post #22
cushychicken wrote: post #21

This is the essential principle behind Getting Things Done . If you’ve got to do something, and it takes more than 90 seconds, book time for it. If you need someone else’s input, schedule a time to check in with them for their inputs if they don’t get back to you by X time. Been using this for years and it has worked really well for me.

90 seconds?? Is that negotiable? Because that sounds to me like a stupidly short time.

I'd hope so as sometimes it can take me more than 90 seconds to put an entry in my calendar, which would result in me putting and entry in my calendar for putting and entry in my calendar :)

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#45

Post by spiesd »

munchler wrote: post #23

> Make every task you would like to do — including meetings, “to-do’s”, doing nothing, watching Game of Thrones — a calendar entry. If your stress level is so high that doing nothing becomes a task you have to schedule ahead of time, you’ve got bigger problems than a calendar app can solve.

If you think of it more as a meditative time, putting it on your calendar seems to make perfect sense. Simple quiet off time is really easy to skip. Not work, not chores, not take a nap, not make dinner, not read HN, not play with the kids. Just sit and not do anything and not feel the need to do anything for an hour.

To be sure, I do a whole bunch of nothing throughout the day, but that's usually just in avoidance of "productive" work. I don't feel meaningfully better having wandered off to get a coffee and stare out the window for a few minutes; in fact, I sometimes feel more pressure to get back to the grind, as if I'd wasted that time.

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#46

Post by andycowley »

pandemic_region wrote: post #30
andycowley wrote: post #25

As a neurodivergent, the idea of scheduling this tightly makes me physically sick. I do need structure, even to the point of "I'm going to veg for two hours", but having it in a calendar entry will make me immediately ignore it. To lists work really well, but I have to have a (at least) two-tier system. Stuff I'm doing now and a backlog. If all I've got is the backlog, it's too overwhelming

I'm interested to know how that makes one neurodivergent. I have the same aversion towards calendar entries, and I have yet to pinpoint what it is that creates this aversion. It's not necessarily that I don't like to do the actual event or task, it feels more like putting it in the calendar makes it official and I will force myself to do it because calendar and I hate to forfeit on things. This then leading to anxiet…

One of my particular adhd symptoms is Oppositional Defiant Disorder https://www.additudemag.com/oppositional-defiant-disorder-in...

In short, if I get to decide when to do something, that's great. If someone asks me to do it, or worse _tells_ me, this kicks in and it takes a huge effort of will to overcome my opposition to it. I've noticed this is also true of 'systems' like calendars.

If you then combine this with my impaired executive function, and difficulty I task switching (to more on the list of symptoms), you get a cocktail of both anxiety and oppositional thought, which results in me doing nothing and internalising the berating that every authority figure in my life gave me because I'm lazy, rather than having a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#47

Post by submeta »

When David Allen released his book "Getting Things Done" (GTD) over 20 years ago, it was like a revelation. Everyone was into GTD and was creating lists, defining contexts (@errands, @groceries, @phone, etc.) and talking about "Inbox Zero": process everything into meaningful lists, leave no stack (email-inbox or desktop) unprocessed.

David Allen was fully into lists, and he recommended not to use the calendar for task management, only for appointments. It was "sacred terrority". Why? Because the calendar can never hold as many items as lists, and he had hundreds of items in those lists. And he started his system from the observation that people manage their lives with their calendards, because they don't have better alternatives.

Fast forward twenty years later: After a detour via Bullet Journals (slow down, create one page for the day, and try to focus only on those items), the calendar and time boxing are all the new rave. Why? Because lists tend to be a magnet for items, and they get more new entries than we can process.

I am predicting the calendar will be out of fashion for task management in a year or so. And then we'll go back to post-its maybe?

The thing is, no system is able to handle the amount of commitments we have in modern day life, either internal (I'd like to lose weight, be a good father, community member, have control over my personal finances, be a good spouse, etc.) or external.

Observing people who are highly productive, I realize they don't even have a task management app or a proper calendar. They use whatever they have (a piece of paper, Notes app in iOS, their email inbox (mailing themselves), or whatnot), but they have a sense of urgency, laser-like focus, and ignore most of the demands thrown at them, looking like egoistic psychopaths, but getting big sh*t done, all the while we mere mortals write on HN or curate our (latest) todo lists or calendars.

What to make of it? Productive people use what is available, put more focus on the task at hand instead of the tools, and have a sense of urgency and focus on very few things.

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#48

Post by klysm »

stared wrote: post #4

Except when something takes a different time than needed, it makes a domino effect on the calendar. And even if something takes less time, it has a disruptive effect on the calendar. Writing a piece of documentation (no code, nothing can compile or crush) can not be estimated to take precisely 30 minutes. Solving a bug may take a minute or hours, in case nothing goes unexpected (if it does, it can be days or unsolvab…

Fat tails make it more difficult

Re: Calendar, Not Todos (2018)

#49

Post by klysm »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #15
jerrygoyal wrote: post #3

I tried it but went back to todo list. Managing or not managing your calendar has zero affect on the time it takes to complete the task. Managing the calendar actually consumes energy plus time that I could've used for doing the actual work instead. Now I look at my todo list and move some things up, some things down in priority and get back at work. Only the tasks that need to be done at the right time go to my cale…

I want to be able to put a “block” in my calendar and every day it automatically schedules in tasks from my todo list, maybe prioritizing time to “benefit”. It would be smart enough to shuffle in recurring tasks periodically. I love working to a calendar if my full day is blocked in, but it’s too much to manage manually, because nothing ever goes according to plan.

There are apps that do this
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