The power of five and pairing tasks - by Anita

Whilst reading through the Philofaxy archive for some inspiration, it occurred to me that I've written a fair amount about my layout or different models that I've owned, but not that much about how I'm actually getting things done. So, I thought that I'd share with you a couple of methods that have really been helping me recently.

Adhoc lists of only five tasks
A wonderful teacher shared this method with me, and I find that it really helps me prioritise or focus if I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Here's an example of one of my lists from some time ago:

1. Type up AGM minutes.
   
2. Put washing away.
3. Finish off my Philofaxy post.
4. Call my Dad.
5. Clean out the hamster. 

I tend to use these shorter lists to get myself moving, so the idea is that each individual task takes about 15 minutes at most. Therefore, for a larger task like typing AGM minutes, I will only do this for 15 minutes, unless it won't take me much longer than this to finish the job. This means that I might have the same recurring task showing on different lists of five, and I find that a helpful way to break it down into more manageable chunks of time. 

With experience, I've found that a good list of five will include a variety of types of tasks like the one above, so that I'm moving my body whilst putting washing away before I need to sit down and type some more.

Pairing tasks
When I was a carer for my late Mum, I was using my Filofax extensively to keep track of appointments, symptoms and medication. Whilst I felt that I was on top of the most important stuff, it could be easy though to forget some of the more trivial recurring things, so I started pairing certain tasks to help myself. Some examples:

• Help Mum take medication and put on steroid cream.
• Cut my nails and Mum's on the same day. 
  
• Check the car tyre pressure when I take out the recycling. 
• For work: I've paired up a couple of clients, so that I will always do their regular work on the same day of the week. 

In my Filofax, I always have some spare paper in my inbox (first section that I come to), so I'll just grab a sheet to make a list of five or to write a list of tasks that I'm choosing to pair at the moment.