PTPL 052: Simple Task Management Advice for People Who Can’t Stick to Their Lists
PLUS A bare bones time line template for my Obsidian daily notes
Welcome to the Plain Text, Paper — Less Productivity Digest! I’m Ellane, and this is a once-a-week taster of the unusual, the helpful, and the delightfully mundane, as well as the next instalment in my quest to future proof and simplify my digital-analog workflow.
This week —
To do apps and your brain — well-researched article link
Healthy task management advice for people who can’t seem to stick to their lists
Plain text accounting on hold — for now
You won’t find a simpler plain text time-line than this one!
Productivity Tips and Inspiration
The complicated psychology of to do apps
Are to-do apps doing more harm than good? Clive Thompson’s WIRED article is a well-researched, fascinating insight into the way our brains cope with planning the stuff we have to get done.
Healthy task management habit advice wanted!
🌿Annette Raffan wants to develop a healthy task management habit. She’s strongly against tasks in Obsidian (that’s her happy place), and she doesn’t want Gantt charts, Todoist, TickTick, Notion, or Outlook.
If you’re a Medium member, you can check out Annette’s quirky, Shakespearean-themed article here.
What principles or ideas would you give someone who feels like they’ve wasted far too much time trying to implement approaches they can’t seem to stick to, and who is looking for a simple system with value that transcends apps?
My current all-tasks-on-one-page system is working wonderfully to keep me focused on the work rather than organising how to do the work, but I’m aware it’s not for everyone — and it may not even be for me, next year! My advice to Annette, and to anyone who finds themselves tossed to and fro on turbulent seas of task management, is to start with a piece of paper or a plain text document, and go from there.
When you begin from a point of ultimate simplicity, sometimes you discover that your true task management requirements aren’t what you thought they were. Sometimes you have to get to the bottom of the issue or issues that, system or no system, are keeping you from attacking your tasks with gusto in the first place.
For each item on your list, ask —
Is this a project or task you really need to do? Is it one you want to do?
Do you have the necessary knowledge and tools to complete it?
Can you clearly visualise what successfully completing the task will look like? What feelings does that vision bring up?
If you find you don’t want to do a project or task, why is that?
Keep asking “why?” until you get to the real reason that’s hiding underneath all the other reasons
If your answers to those questions were fairly neutral, congratulations! It’s a lot easier to find a truly helpful task management system when you aren’t weighed down with mental or emotional baggage. If, however, the questions brought up some Big Feelings, well, then; you have some work to do, either on your own or with the help of a qualified professional.
I’m in the Big Feelings camp, and am still working through my issues; thankfully, with a lot more success these days. Simplifying everything has been an important part of that journey.
Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)
Plain text accounting: on hold — for now
This past week I’ve been focusing on budgeting. As much as I want to do all of it in plain text, for the time being I’m seeing what I can learn from the free 34-day YNAB trial. Four days in, and I’m loving the view.
The problem with tracking my finances in plain text isn’t the capability of the solutions (Ledger, hledger, Beancount) that make it work; it’s with the people who aren’t me, that also need access to the figures, who can’t or won’t get over the learning curve.
I haven’t given up; just following a different branch of the tree for a time.
A simple timeline in my Obsidian daily note
Something I loved about buying a new paper planner each year was seeing all those pre-printed hours, just waiting for me to slip my plans between their cool, inviting divider lines. I’ve created more than my share of complex plain text daily note layouts attempting to recapture that simple, calendar-free scheduling approach, before giving them all away in an effort to rid myself of shiny object/system syndrome. To cut away the cruft and focus on the most pleasing essentials.
Earlier this week I created a time-saving template sporting nothing but a list of hours, ready to be inserted into the daily notes that want one:
https://youtube.com/shorts/_V7ZPbSbQsQ
It’s the opposite of pretentious, and that’s why I love it. I don’t always want to plan my day by the hour, or with a calendar, but when I do…this barebones approach gives me a picture of my rough intentions for the hours ahead. To reschedule, I use the custom keyboard shortcut ⌘1 to move lines up, and ⌘2 to move them down.
Effective Task Management Starts With a Simple List
You can discover more about what your productivity needs by stripping your task management system back to the barest of bare bones, than you ever could by adding complexity on top of complexity. That way, when you need more, you’ll know it. It won’t just be a false hunger for empty productivity promises.
My advice as one that was chronically addicted to many task apps:
- Keep it simple! Like, seriously. A notepad with a list is good enough
- If all else fails, design your own. Perhaps the reason why you constantly jump apps is because you don't like being confined to an app's planning system. That was true for me. So I chose a tool - Obsidian - that allowed me to create my own. Before, I literally designed my own planners and would print one every quarter.