Have Done List

[kumarei]

To-do lists don't work. Rather, I should say that they work for their intended purpose, which is to remind you that there is something that you should be doing, but not for the purpose that many people use them for, which is as a way to try to get themselves to do things that they don't really want to do

Comments

[boco]

One issue with to-do lists, especially those with goals attached, is chunking - that is, most people write pretty big stuff down and then don't do it, when it's much better to break the big stuff into smaller, digestible bits and do them a little at a time. A second issue is also a problem most video games - especially puzzle games - suffer from, and that's dependency. A bad to-do list has an order attached (must complete 1 before 2 before 3 etc) and a good one doesn't (I don't feel like 1 or I tried it and got frustrated, so instead I'll do 2).

But yes, making a to-do list as a way to motivate rather than track behavior is a little silly. But planning out a large project by breaking it into manageable, unordered chunks is a very worthwhile use of time.

[kumarei]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that aspect of to-do lists. Breaking down projects is definitely a good use of to-do lists. They're great for getting an idea of what you need to do on a smaller scale. The only reason I bring up the issue of using to-do lists as a motivator is that it's a mistake that I made, and one that I think is very easy to make.

[shinmatsuz]

I actually had a hybrid to-do/have-done list at work. I had one of those ruled half-size notebooks. When I started, the left side was the "have-done" side and the right side was "to-do tomorrow so I don't forget". I later switched which side was which, but the idea stayed the same.

It was very effective for a while, but eventually I had trouble visualizing the things I had done except as "made progress toward X goal". However, it was very helpful at first.

I am not sure if switching which side was which was the cause of the difficulties. It might have been; after all, it's far more encouraging if I see the side of things that I have done first rather than the side of things I need to do.

[kumarei]

Yeah, I check the task management system at work every so often just to reassure myself that I'm actually doing okay. The Gantt chart is nice for that to.

In terms of this, though, my goal is to begin to allocate my time in such a way that I don't regret the way that I spent it. It's not getting any specific goals done (I've given up on forcing myself to do things I don't want to), but rather to stop having days like Saturday, in which I sat around in my house and did nothing all day. I didn't even particularly relax or anything, just basically wandered around being bored. Maybe if I write down "stood around being bored for the last four hours" somewhere I'll stop doing it.

[dasburricanein]

Actually, I think you're onto something with that Twitter idea. If you don't want anyone to see it, you could just make an account then immediately set your updates to 'friends only' and just invite no friends. Then you could see your "Have-Dones" mostly as a list of accomplishments, with length inferrable from time between posts. The 140 char max on tweets would encourage you to make very very short tweets after every digestible activity or so.

There are lots of programs for tracking twitter. Digsby has a nice one, PC has one that WOULD be nice if it didn't crash every 10min (seriously) called Twitterlicious, Mac has a good one that everyone and their dog uses but Macs are for gays so LOLZ i dunno wat its called.

[kumarei]

I actually like Twitter quite a bit, so that was more of a stereotype of anti-twitter stereotypes. I was thinking that it could integrate with Twitter in the same way that evernote does: linking your twitter with your account, and then pm'ing a the new item to a special account.

I'm really starting to like this idea. I think I'm going to need to look into actually making this. I was looking for something to code in rails, but I'm not sure this is it. I might end up using a php framework or something. I'm not sure I'm good enough with rails to make a calendar display for the items, and that's the most important part of this idea for me.

[dasburricanein]

My twitter's burrwalker. Add me if you like