Think "Spotify Playlists" to boost your productivity.
There are so many options of where to store all of your reminders of things to do. Pieces of paper, notebooks, your phone or computer, calendar, sticky notes, and in your head.
If you do write things down on paper or input the information into a digital device, you don’t always trust these systems to remind you to do the right task at the right time. Your head then takes back responsibility, thinking it can do a better job. Your brain doesn’t like your dodgy system, and claims it has the better computing power to both hold and give you the right instructions at the right time.
Your mind is lying to you. It wasn’t built to be a great office, with perfect filing cabinets, everything in its place ready to be served to you in an instant, just when you need it. Reminders pop up into your head at inconvenient times. Like in the middle of the night, or when you arrive home having past the shop where you needed to pick up the milk.
The Power of Playlists
So if our head isn't the best place to temporarily store reminders, and we don’t fully trust our existing paper and digital systems that we create, what could you turn to?
I say turn to music streaming services, like Spotify. "Why would I want to put on some music to help me here?" I hear you holler. You don’t need to play music. You just take the idea of creating "playlists". But in your case, not music playlists, but task playlists.
If we take Spotify as an example, it’s a music streaming service with over 50 million songs. You are never going to listen to all of them in your lifetime. The menu is just too vast. Just like all the things that you could do in your lifetime, you're never going to do them all, it's impossible.
In Spotify you can create and listen to playlists. You cut down the musical menu on offer into smaller groups of meaningful songs. There is a theme to each list. Such as, an album of songs by one artist, songs that energise you during exercise, fun songs for a kids party, your top 10 favourite new songs this week.
To create the list, you’ve filtered out all that isn't relevant, and focused on what is, or could be, suitable. You've intentionally created an appropriate list that will add value to you or others, rather than relying on a random shuffle of 50 million songs. You listen to an album in the order that the artist wanted you to hear it. You have track after track to power you through that 5k run. Kids jump about to all their favourite party hits. You feel good experiencing your curated list of new tunes.
Tasks, not Songs
What if you took this concept, and used it for building personal lists in work and life. Creating a massive list of your could do's and have to do's. Just like your 50 million Spotify songs, although you won't quite have 50 million things that you could or must do.
Then break them down into playlists, like you would with Spotify playlists. Just look for patterns of similar tasks in your massive list, then build a playlist for these similar groupings.
Your Task Playlists
Each of your projects could be written as a playlist. Listing all of the tasks and subtasks within the list. Or rather than by project, you could group all similar types of tasks in a playlist. Such as grouping all phone calls together, all the questions that you need to ask someone when you meet, all things you can only do at your desk or on your computer. All the things you need to ask Google.
If your massive list isn't that massive, then a simple "personal" playlist and "work" playlist may suffice. If the lists start to grow and there's too much to sift through, that’s when you break those longer playlists down into smaller ones.
My two main playlists to work from are my “Office - professional” and “Office personal” playlists. I also have one for all the jobs I need or could do in the house, like mowing the lawn, or sorting out old clothes to then take to the charity shop. I also have a playlist for my wife! I batch up questions that I need to ask her, then wait for the mutually right moment to go through them all in one swift move. It works very effectively. My “Out & About” playlist is handy too. It helps me to spot patterns of stuff that I need to drop off, pick up, or buy, in locations near to each other. It’s a very useful list to check when I'm about to head out in the car.
A Playlist for today
It can be overwhelming seeing all of the tasks in your playlists. You intentionally created the lists to eliminate that problem. You could therefore also consider building a daily Playlist. Extracting from your playlists, all the tasks that you have to, or could do, just today. You could call it a “focussed” playlist. Ensuring that you are working at and completing the right things today.