Cal Newport's Best Practice To Organize Your Tasks

00:00:00.000 | All right, let's do a cool case study here.

00:00:03.560 | Let's do one more question

00:00:04.880 | and then I have a cool case study I wanna read.

00:00:07.200 | - Sounds good.

00:00:08.040 | This question is from Adam Portillo from New York.

00:00:12.440 | Can you describe your decision rule for entering a task

00:00:15.220 | either onto a travel board

00:00:16.800 | versus directly into a weekly plan?

00:00:19.440 | I'm finding it tempting easier to put time sensitive items

00:00:22.900 | and links directly into my weekly plan,

00:00:25.520 | but then it gets a little cluttered.

00:00:28.140 | - Well, Adam, I'll tell you my best practice on this issue,

00:00:30.480 | which is not something I always follow,

00:00:32.280 | but I'm always happier when I do.

00:00:34.240 | And that best practice is the following.

00:00:38.620 | So you have, you know, something pops up,

00:00:40.680 | a task, an obligation, you jot it down

00:00:42.500 | and your whatever you use for capture in the moment.

00:00:44.920 | So for me, it'll probably be my time block planner.

00:00:47.560 | On the daily pages,

00:00:49.160 | there's a section for capturing these things.

00:00:50.800 | And then you get to the end of the day,

00:00:52.120 | you need to process it.

00:00:53.280 | My best practice is there's two places

00:00:56.120 | where that new task can go.

00:00:58.500 | Onto an appropriate task board or list

00:01:01.420 | or onto your calendar.

00:01:02.580 | All right, so task board or list onto your calendar.

00:01:06.300 | What would qualify it for going onto your calendar

00:01:08.620 | if it's connected to a specific day

00:01:11.100 | in which you've decided it needs to be executed?

00:01:13.820 | So the calendar is for time specific tasks.

00:01:17.700 | So let's say I need to do a book blurb

00:01:20.620 | and it's due on Thursday,

00:01:21.480 | I might put an all day event on that calendar day,

00:01:23.700 | you know, book blurb is due for whatever.

00:01:26.520 | Oftentimes I'll actually find the specific time

00:01:29.260 | for one of these time sensitive activities

00:01:30.780 | and put it on my calendar like an appointment.

00:01:33.860 | Give you a real world example,

00:01:35.940 | Friday of this week, department merit reviews are due.

00:01:40.220 | It's a administrative task

00:01:42.020 | where you have to go through a spreadsheet

00:01:43.300 | and sort of fill in all the academic activities

00:01:45.740 | you did during the year

00:01:46.580 | and it helps generate your raise for the year.

00:01:50.180 | I have the specific time when I'm gonna do that

00:01:52.460 | on my calendar for Friday.

00:01:55.560 | So if a task is associated with a particular day,

00:01:57.460 | it can go on your calendar,

00:01:58.320 | it doesn't have to be on your task list

00:02:00.700 | because your calendar is obviously a productivity tool

00:02:02.580 | that you trust when you get to each day,

00:02:03.860 | you see what your appointments are and you do those things.

00:02:05.860 | So I trust my calendar as a productivity tool.

00:02:08.500 | If it's not tied to a specific day, it goes to a task list.

00:02:11.980 | In my case, those lists are kept on Trello boards.

00:02:15.180 | Now I look at my Trello boards each morning

00:02:17.460 | when I build my daily time block plan.

00:02:19.140 | So if you're actually following the system,

00:02:20.820 | if I actually am in the groove of looking at my task board

00:02:24.020 | every day when I do my weekly plan,

00:02:25.920 | I can trust that stuff that's important will get done

00:02:28.480 | because when I look at the relevant task board,

00:02:30.240 | I'll see those tasks

00:02:31.440 | and I'm not gonna be dumber tomorrow than I am today.

00:02:34.240 | So if I know today this thing is important,

00:02:36.120 | when I see it tomorrow, I will remember,

00:02:38.240 | oh, this is important and see if I can fit it

00:02:40.360 | into my time block plan for the day.

00:02:42.400 | So that is my best practice.

00:02:44.140 | I sometimes don't follow it when I feel like my schedule

00:02:49.520 | is disrupted enough that I don't trust myself

00:02:51.800 | to look at my task list every day

00:02:53.000 | and that's when I begin adding an extra reminder

00:02:56.080 | to my weekly plan, emailing myself an email

00:02:58.860 | where it's a reminder in the subject line.

00:03:00.720 | But that is all a,

00:03:02.160 | that's all an artifact of lack of trust.

00:03:05.800 | I don't trust that I'm gonna see this in my list

00:03:07.920 | and make sure it gets done.

00:03:09.480 | That makes me nervous,

00:03:10.360 | so I'm gonna add these extra reminders.

00:03:11.780 | But when I am on track,

00:03:15.820 | executing my system properly,

00:03:17.940 | that's how I like to do it.

00:03:19.040 | If it needs to be done a particular day,

00:03:20.240 | put it on that day, otherwise put it on the list.

00:03:22.480 | Even if I know it needs to get done this week,

00:03:24.560 | I don't really need to write that down somewhere

00:03:26.740 | because when I see that task in my list every single morning,

00:03:30.000 | I will remember this is something

00:03:32.440 | that needs to get done this week.

00:03:34.600 | Like I'm not gonna forget tomorrow what I know today.

00:03:36.500 | So that's my best practice, calendar or task list,

00:03:38.720 | check the task list every day.

00:03:40.220 | That moves smoothly.

00:03:42.800 | And that's how I know that I'm out of sorts by the way,

00:03:44.820 | is when I start emailing myself reminders,

00:03:46.480 | that's when I step back and say, I'm off my system.

00:03:49.760 | I need to get back to my system.

00:03:51.120 | And I always feel better when I do.

00:03:52.920 | - Do you do that process in like the same spot every day

00:03:55.320 | or is it vary?

00:03:56.640 | - I do now.

00:03:57.480 | So in my study at home,

00:04:00.360 | which we'll have to in an upcoming weekly update video,

00:04:03.680 | Jason's gonna bring the camera over to my study at home.

00:04:06.060 | I go to my study at home each morning

00:04:09.840 | and I have a desk, my custom built desk

00:04:12.620 | that's made to fit the kind of weird space of the study.

00:04:15.040 | And it has a one drawer.

00:04:16.960 | I had it built in this one drawer

00:04:18.440 | and I open up that drawer and here's my time block planner.

00:04:21.240 | I take that out, I put it on the desk,

00:04:23.080 | I turn on my laptop and it's the first thing I do

00:04:27.080 | is I'll make that daily plan for the day.

00:04:29.540 | And I try to do this if I can

00:04:30.800 | before I walk my kids to the bus stop.

00:04:32.480 | If not, immediately after I get back from the bus stop,

00:04:36.320 | I'll do this by load up my computer.

00:04:38.400 | And so my weekly plan will be,

00:04:41.160 | and I was looking to see if I don't have my backpack in here

00:04:44.440 | my weekly plan will be printed and in my time block planner.

00:04:48.560 | So I open this thing, I read the weekly plan,

00:04:51.980 | I open my computer, I read my calendar,

00:04:55.400 | I read my task list in Trello

00:04:57.600 | and sketch out that time block plan for the day.

00:05:01.100 | So when I'm on the ball, that's what I do.

00:05:03.040 | And so having the set location

00:05:05.520 | that I come to every morning at the same time to do this,

00:05:08.940 | that really has helped keep me in it.

00:05:10.400 | So during the period when we were renovating that study

00:05:13.000 | and I didn't have a set location, I might work outside,

00:05:15.520 | I might work at the kitchen table, I might work upstairs,

00:05:17.920 | I fell off the system more.

00:05:19.240 | And so it's a good question.

00:05:21.120 | Having a great location where this is where I do,

00:05:24.360 | that's how I start my day

00:05:26.200 | has really made a big difference to me.

00:05:28.160 | (upbeat music)

00:05:31.660 | (upbeat music)

00:05:34.240 | (upbeat music)

00:05:36.820 | (upbeat music)

00:05:39.400 | (upbeat music)

Cal Newport's Best Practice To Organize Your Tasks

Chapters