Routine and Long Term Goals/Tasks

People sometimes think I must be a very organised person! In my own mind nothing could be further from the truth!

My normal routine daily and weekly tasks are under control using my regular weekly diary inserts. Where I fall down (at the moment) are the non-routine and long term tasks. 

I sat down the other day to try and bring together my tasks that I keep 'putting off' 

I chose to keep it simple and I grabbed a plain To-Do/Notes page and started detailing those 'I will do it one day' jobs. 

Small changes to your set up often bring the biggest rewards. 

Planning Household and Garden Tasks

The New Year can sometimes bring you that feeling that you have been neglecting jobs around the house or the garden. If you are shaking your head, it must be just me then! 

The list of things to do can sometimes seem a little bit overwhelming and also some jobs need to be done at a particular time of year, especially in the garden. 

I came up with a simple One Year Per Page planner which I think will help you space out the jobs through out the year and help you not feel quite so overwhelmed. 

The first page is split in to months 

And the second page I decided to split in to the four seasons which might suit gardening tasks more than household ones. 

You can of course print just one page or both. The file is sized at A4 as usual, scale to fit for A5 or A6 or B6. 

Also feel free to edit it if you need more lines or a different layout. 

• Tasks - .docx .pdf

We have some similar lists in previous posts: 

• Household Master Task List - Inserts
• Gardening Tasks In Your Organiser

You will also find our collection of files for a variety of other tasks that you can adapt to suit your needs here. 

This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

Long Term Tasks/Goals

Talking on a regular basis with a fellow paper organiser/planner user is really good for the soul. It helps you break out of your own comfort zone and gets you thinking about doing things in a different way.

As you know I've been chatting and discussing some of our favourite planner topics with Karine Tovmassian on 'The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Plannerverse' podcast.

A few times Karine has shared with us how she has all of her goals and tasks listed and how she adds them to her weekly task lists.

Personally I have tended to only plan on a weekly basis, with some things (mainly appointments) planned further ahead than that.

With the changes to the seasons finally happening here it gets me shifting gear in to what I should be doing or I need to do outside, and what was a fairly steady winter weekly routine has to be massaged to include new tasks like lawn mowing and other jobs outside etc.

Hearing Karine explain how she has all of her tasks and goals recorded in her organiser has 'kicked my butt' in to thinking I need to start thinking in a similar way, otherwise I am still going to have lots and lots of unfinished jobs and projects that will never in a million years get on to my weekly task list.

So starting this next week I'm going to try and decide how to record all of these miscellaneous tasks/jobs/goals and put them in to some form of order and then prioritise them and start adding them to my weekly list of things to do and start getting some of them crossed off the list.

So how do you plan your long term goals/tasks? Do you have any hints and tips you can share. Please leave them in the comments.

Readers Tip - Routine Task Sheet

We often get ideas sent in to us for diary inserts or new pages for Philofaxy, some of them are very specific to the person who has sent them in. A few of the ideas get included to our extensive range of diary inserts. The emails arrive at all times of the day, it is not like the post which is a 6 day a week service with one delivery a day, these arrive at all times of day or night...

When 'Melbourne Mom' sent this one in she described it in great detail and I was still half asleep.. thankfully she then sent me some photos and it then made perfect sense!

We have mentioned task related page markers before, I've even used them myself. This is a reusable task page though, but quite clever in it's design.

I thought the Philofaxers might be interested in the routine template which I have come up with for WO2P Personal. It helps keep my WO2P entries neat and tidy, and makes for an efficient use of space.  

Maybe it's been done elsewhere by other people on other websites (it's so simple, surely someone has done it)

a. Choose a note-page (for my black Apex diary, the orange ruled note-page is perfect as it is easy to find the page in the diary and the colour feels dynamic and energising to me).

b. Draw a line margin to make a column for the pre-existing punched binder holes – the line should be about 1cm from the left-hand edge of the note-paper.

c. Fold the page over so the right hand edge of the note-paper joins this line.

d. Measure 1cm (or whatever mm to suit you) from the right hand edge of the folded paper, and draw a line down that side.  Do the same on the other side of the fold.

e. Using both the Wo2P diary paper and the preexisting feint horizontal rules on the notepaper as a guide, divide the note-page into 4 sections from top to bottom corresponding to the standard sized Thursday and Friday entry spaces and the half-sized Saturday and Sunday entry spaces on the standard WO2P. (On the reverse page, you will need to rule only 3 equally sized sections for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.)

f. To recap what the format should now look like from left to right when unfolded, the front page of your template note-page has a 1cm wide margin "binder" column for the pre-existing punched binder holes, a 3.3cm wide column for "morning routines", 2@1cm wide "central columns" (with the fold in the middle between them) and a 3.3cm column for "evening routines". Repeat this format on the reverse of the page, except the binder-hole column here comes last, because it should obviously be on the right hand side, not the left side of the page.

g. When the front page of the paper is folded again, hole-punch the central 1cm column with six entries per day for the Thursday and Friday sections and 3 each for Saturday and Sunday, so there is a total of 18 punched holes all the way down the column pre-ruled notepaper.

h. Open up the folded page. You now have two central 1cm columns, each with 18 hole-punches  all the way down the centre of the paper.

i.  In the  “morning routines” column on the notepaper, using a pencil, I like to record six critical stages / deadlines of my morning routine which helps me to leave the house on time every working day. Eg h:mm make tea, +6min shower, +13min Breakfast, +6min Dishwasher / Washing out, +11min Feed toddler, +11min Leave house [to catch train].  In the “evening routines” column, I add six critical components of my evening routine to help me and my children get to bed at a reasonable time.

j. Turn the template note page over, and put in the routine entries for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in their respective columns and sections.

k. (Note: the daily routine can be adapted to suit your own circumstances and doesn't need to be just morning and evening routines, the routine if [not is] planned well can allow for daily variation eg morning gym every second day).

l. There are only three hole-punches for each of Saturday and Sunday.  I am not at work on these days, but as a night-owl who is trying to make a habit of an early morning routine, I add the first three morning routine tasks to make sure I get up and dressed at the usual time anyway.  Ditto on the evening side for my three routine tasks for getting my kids fed, bathed and read to in bed every night.

m. Having prepared my template, I then spend 5-10 minutes ruling to divide all my my standard WO2P diary pages for the year with an identical format, except instead of a “morning routines” column I have my “appointments” column, and instead of an “evening routine” column I have my “To do’s” column for each daily entry, and the two 1cm columns in the middle are for ticking off routines.

n. For my routines, all I have to do is cover the page with the orange template page (I keep this routines template page between my week on two pages view as a kind of “today” tab), and tick inside each hole-punch onto the WO2P page central columns for each day.

o. As an alternative to ticking off the routine tasks, I can add a number representing the number of minutes delayed for whatever reason, or minutes faster than the allotted time, so that I can fine-tune my routine on review).

[My daily “to do’s” column is for what must be done today, as distinct from my “weekly to do’s” which are kept in a separate tabbed section in my Filofax, using the “Daily Planner”  sheets which I think I got in an old Firenze planner, with date for week beginning and with three columns for priority, task and completed box.  That way I don’t feel like a failure for not ticking off wish-list tasks every day.]

Thank you 'Melbourne Mom' for your tip

Routine Tasks

As I was doing one of my routine weekly tasks the other night (putting out the rubbish/trash) it occurred to me, I wonder how many people write routine tasks in to their Filofax.

I started to list them in my head and it's surprising the sort of number you get to. Some are daily, others weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, six monthly, annual and so on.

Then I started to write them down on a pad, what started to emerge from the pattern of tasks was that they could be grouped together and may be slotted in to my daily routines in a much better way.

I left the list for a few days and started to add to it as I thought of things, it is surprising how big the list is!

If you are creating a similar list, you can make the task list a 'master list' and then transfer the tasks to your planner on a weekly or monthly basis.

One thing you must all include though is to check your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors on a regular basis and replace them before the date on the back or inside. See this post for further explanation. 

So what routine tasks do you put in your organiser? 

Time Management with Filofax - Diary Options

I've seen many comments about finding the ideal diary refill to enable people to do the right sort of time/task management on a typical day.

It is all about juggling time, tasks, appointments and remembering all those small things that go together to combat our busy, hectic modern lives. It doesn't matter if it's fitting in those four clients before the end of the week or working out if you can fit in that hair dressing appointment before the children come home from school, we are all trying to get 30 hours out of a 24 hour day.

'My day is already full and unfortunately I can't add any more hours to it' 

Which is a play on my favourite quote

'The radio spectrum is already packed and unfortunately they have stopped making any more of it'...

From the cries (yes!) I've seen in the comments on the topic of diary refills in the past, there is no obvious one that works for everyone... and before you get your hopes up... I'm sorry people, I'm not going to throw you a curved ball and point out to you that magical one that we have all ignored... well not quite... read on.

A few weeks ago we 'uncovered' the Filofax Time Management series of refills. I've tried to contact the 'Time Management Team' at Filofax, but I've not head back from them.

So I've had another detailed look through the various Filofax on-line sites looking specifically for suitable refills.

Going back to this photo of Adam's A5 at the London Meet up in November 2010:

Adam's not confirmed it (I guess he's busy), but I believe he's using the A5 Business refill, this refill is a day per page with space for appointments, To-Dos, Notes etc:

Now I know a lot of you will say ah yes but it's in A5 size... too big.. but in case there is anyone that says it's not big enough... there is an A4 version. I had to include it for completeness.

OK, let us now look at what is available in Personal size. You will of course all remember Jotje's excellent guest post on Task and Time Management. In it you will recall the Day on Two Page refills she uses:

Take a look at Jotje's post to see examples of these pages filled in, this will give you a much more accurate picture of how it works for her.

Another feature of Jotje's Filofax is her use of Undated Planner Pages:

You will also find my own version of these type of pages in the Files page: 

• A4/A5 Day Planner undated - .doc .pdf
• Personal Day Planner undated - .doc .pdf  

Note: there are a whole host of new Personal Size pages on the Files page now as well.

So far these are all 'English' pages, although not all of them are available on the UK Filofax Site. So going a little further a field. I came across the following Day on One Page design on the Filofax Germany website:

Then there is this refill available on the Filofax Denmark site:

It's also a Day per Page refill with space for notes and to-do's in the right hand column. The layout of these pages are very similar to ones available from Quo Vadis here in Europe (France)

This particular example is in Personal size (Timer 17)

Day Timer also do a similar set of refills in their Portable size that fit Filofax Personal size, here is just one example:

Franklin Covey Compact size is similar to Filofax Personal size, but the pages are wider so they would stick out in most Filofax organisers, not ideal.

Thanks Colie for reminding me... There is also the DaVinci inserts that you can import from Japan.

I've most probably only touched the surface, have you found anything else similar to these? Drop a link in to a comment and share your knowledge.

Thank you.

Task Management With Your Filofax

Continuing our discussion series on how to 'Get Things Done' using your Filofax, I think it's time I was a little bit more open and disclose a bit about my own methods, or rather the lack of them !!

You see whilst I don't work in the same sense that most people do, I'm just an assistant to 'The Boss' I still I suppose have to 'Get Things Done' otherwise nothing would get done, but my 'tasks' might be a bit more mundane than most... we aren't talking 'Blue Sky Thinking' here.

It's stuff like doing the ironing before we run out of shirts and blouses to wear. Making sure I remember all those small things I intend to purchase that we can't get easily in France on our next visit to UK. Or stuff I would like to get done some day but there's no particular deadline, but if I don't note it down somewhere the xyz component I need to order to accomplish the task will get forgotten about.  OK I'm sure I'm not alone with this sort of every day stuff.

So here's the confession... Up to now it's all been a little haphazard, sure it's written down somewhere I'm sure but in a variety of lists and bits of paper. How anything has gotten done is a minor miracle I suppose.

However, since I started using just my Slimline Finsbury for my To-Do lists a few weeks ago, I certainly have felt more 'focused' in being able to get a grip with my various tasks and projects. But it was far from perfect, because all I had done was transferred my pages across from other organisers. So how can I improve on this...

Looking at a few different on-line sources including some electronic task managers... which I've tried and never really got on with! They seemed to have a common approach. So this week I'm going to try a new approach with my To-Do lists.

I have separated my tasks in to:

• This Week
• This Month
• And sometime in the future
• Projects 
• Blog Posts

This isn't a standard set up, because I know most people advocate having a 'Today' list as well. In my case that is not critical. Also there's nothing particularly radical or new in this idea, but by paying attention to your comments and other peoples suggestions I think this might work for me.

Although I've only been using this set of To-Do lists for a couple of days, already I feel more focused and I feel able to remember to do more things and get more things done. I just wish now I had made this change sooner!

Can you think of any improvements I might implement?

Guest Post: Task and Time Management with Filofax - Jotje

Thank you to Jotje for sending me this article about how she uses her Filofax for Task and Time Management, several of you requested the details in the comments recently.

Okay, since some of you asked, I’ll finally detail my current Time management system for my personal Filofax.

I’ve been using an A5 Filofax solely for work and a Mini for private. However, I discovered that this didn’t work as well as it should be. While I was rereading Julie Morgensterns books, one sentence really hit home: you only have ONE life, hence you only should use ONE planner. It does make sense!

Then I met this beauty

My decision to downgrade to Personal size was made that very instant! I could go on and on about the wonderful leather quality and it’s smart setup (I love that little zipper pocket on the lefthand side), but there’s been enough praise of the Malden already and no one is waiting for my repetition.

Back to the TM setup.

Step 1: 

I first defined which life categories I have and want to spend my time on. In my case that is:

1)     Business I share with DH (green)

2)     My own translation business (blue)

3)     Family (orange)

4)     Relationship (pink)

5)     Home (yellow)

6)     Me (purple)

I‘ve added the corresponding colour, more about that later.

Step 2: 

What big-picture goals do I have for each of these categories? To keep a general overview I kept it at no more than 3 goals. I have written the goals each on a sheet of note paper in the corresponding colour. They are all after tab 6 of my Filofax.

Step 3: 

What activities will help me to achieve my set goals?

I wrote those on the backside of the coloured note paper.

Step 4: 

Then I made  a time map. I have used a blank time map in A5 format, that I had left-over from my Time/System days. After completing it, I shrunk it on the copy machine and punched it to fit into my Malden. There’s plenty of Time Map Templates on the internet btw! The important feature is that it has printed hours and weekdays.

I first defined the fixed time slots, like “waking up”, “getting kids ready to school”, “lunch hour”, “cooking and dinner”, “fetching kids from school”, clubs you may attend etc. (Advice: Do it in pencil so you don’t feel inhibited to just jump at it. If you change your mind, you can easily change the sheet.)I find it vital to create time blocks and make them visual. So if I  lunch at 12.00 h and it takes me an hour, I block out the timeslot from 12.00 to 13.00 h.

For the remaining time blocks I decide on which life category I want (or have) to spend it on. I write the category down, and specify according to the activities list I made in Step 2. For example for the green section (shared business with DH), I have hours blocked for administrative work, acquisition and meetings.

After I finished my time map, I highlighted the time blocks in the corresponding colour of my life categories. I’ve done that with coloured highlighters. My timemap is sitting behind Tab 2 in my Filofax, in front of the 2PPW refill.

Step 5: 

I note down appointments on my weekly pages. I’m using a week in columns format with appointment times (behind Tab 2) so that I can block out the appropriate times of an appointment. Before I agree to an appointment I quickly check my Time Map to see if I am really available on that specific time. Nothing is as misleading as empty and blank weekly pages, because you easily get the impression that there’s seas of time! While in fact, I had already committed that time to my home or family in my time map! Obviously there’s situations when you have an overlap, but then you get to “swap” those dedicated time slots against each other (e.g. if you meet with a customer during the time you reserved for weekly errands, you’ll do the errands a work-related time slot. Obviously this is possible if you are self-employed. However your boss might not like you to go shopping during office hours ;-)).

Step 6: 

Todo’s. I have my Todo sheets behind Tab 1. On the top of the sheet I note the month and then the sheets get numbered. At the end of the month the uncompleted Todo’s are transferred to the next month (even if I don’t plan to do them for several months; I find it’s important to get a constant reminder, so I’ll know that I am planning to do them at any given time). The old Todo’s are then getting archived.

Since I only have ONE planner, ALL Todo’s get noted, in no particular order. “Sending proposal”, “buy new shoes for DD” and “make plans for next years holiday” are all noted alongside. For a visual separation I highlight the Todo-line with the appropriate colour marker (again: orange for family, green/blue for work etc.). Another option might be to have one Todo-sheet (or section) for each life category, maybe even on coloured paper. I have not tried this.

When I write down my Todo, I add the date to the left. Then when I’ve done it, I check the box and at the completion date. I am doing this so that I can find back notes on any Todo. I’ll get to that in a minute.

When I note my Todo’s I also think about when I want to do it. If it has a fixed deadline, I note it in the blank area of the relevant weekly pages.

Step 7: 

Your daily plan:

Each night I draw up my daily plan. My daily pages are behind Tab 3. I check the Todo’s on my Weekly pages and decide on what specific day I need or want to do them. On the righthand side of my 2PPD-pages I note the list of Todo’s to be completed on that particular day.

On the left hand side, I first block out the fixed time slots (getting kids to school, lunch hours, fixed appointments). Then I check my time map for what time I have reserved for which category and assign a timeslot for each and every todo on the righthand side. This means you have to train your estimation skills! How long does it take you to write that proposal? Treat every Todo as an appointment! 

Now, the lefthand side of the dialy pages has 2 columns. All of the above is written in the lefthand column. For the righthand column I have found several purposes. One: I note appointments of my DH, so I’ll know if he’s out on any given moment and if I need to arrange for our babysitter during that time. I also write down which of our four kids has to go to what afterschool activity or playdate and at what time she or he needs to be picked up again. Third: if a task has been planned for 30 minutes and eventually took me much longer or shorter, I mark this on the right with a pencil line. That way I hope to improve my time estimation skills.

At the end of the day, I review my daily plan. Todo’s that didn’t get done and need to be transferred, are immediately written on next day’s Todo list.

That way I don’t need to carry months worth of daily pages with me. I usually carry only 2 to 3 weeks of daily pages.

I am currently using the Day Planner pages from Filofax to tide me over to the next year, when I will be using the FF 2PPD format. Here is a picture:

What else is in my Filofax? 

The weekly pages are divided with the monthly register tabs. Yes, it’s annoying that the weeks get “split up”, but I got used to it pretty fast.

Behind Tab 4 are my Notes pages. I date all notes and at the end of the month, I archive them together with the past weekly and daily pages.

For quick reference I have added a red sticky tab that says “Notes”.

Behind Tab 5 I have 2PPM sheets that carry the very irregular working schedule of my DH. Since I have to maintain this schedule, I find it invaluable to always have it with me. To find the current months as fast as possible, I have added a yellow sticky tab with “Maand” on it (which is Dutch for “Month”).

I use the slimline address register for the login names and passwords of frequently visited websites.

In the back of my Filofax are 2 plastic envelopes for tickets, receipts or anything I don’t dare to loose.

In the front I carry some paracetamol in the zipper pocket, so I’m prepared should a serious headache come up. Behind this zipper I’ve managed to stuff a small ink eraser pen. Since I write with a fountain pen, I like to be able to change things neatly. My Lamy is tucked in the rings, because the pen loop is occupied with my BIC pencil.

 

And here’s a side view of my fat and invaluable life companion!

Other Time Management Tools I use: 

A large monthly planner in the office, that’s a copy of his working schedule. It’s actually a Printout of the monthly Outlook pages in a common A4 sized ring binder.

A Weekly Family Planner, with a column for each family member. It also has a plastic overlay sheet to note down the recurrent events (like after school activities of the kids, classes my DH or I attend etc.). It  hangs on a prominent place in the kitchen and functions as a control center. I update this planner every Sunday night.

The Organised Mum Life book, a 2 Pages-Per-Week ringbound planner that has my cleaning and household schedule in it. It lays open on the counter and I refer to it during the time slots that are marked as “Family” or “Home” time. It also has the weekly menu plan. Menu's are written noted with a red Stabilo pen, so it stands out.

Well, that’s about it! Hope you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to comment!

Goals and Tasks

This is a topic that I like to revisit every now and then, because I love to hear how people use their Filofaxes to accomplish their goals, complete their tasks, run their lives and rule the universe.

So today the topic is, goals and tasks. When do goals become tasks?

For example, your goal might be to be healthier. In order to do that, you need to generate some tasks. That might be, keeping a food journal to monitor your eating, or following an exercise plan. I usually have to schedule my exercise, so that I will actually do it instead of another week going by and I realize I haven't worked out at all. I also have to get specific about what I need to do that week, such as 3 strength training sessions and 3 cardio sessions. And I have to write them on my weekly page or again, I will forget to make time for them.

Another example of a goal that generates tasks is preparing the house for a move. We will be moving next summer, and I need to pare down and organize the household contents before moving. So I have a task list of things I need to go through and get rid of whatever I don't want to take with us: clothes, shoes, kids' toys, books (I never normally get rid of books but we have a lot of nonfiction that is outdated, books from university etc that I don't need to drag around anymore!), etc. It's a huge chore, and the only way I can face it is a little bit at a time.

In addition to the tasks generated by goals are those millions of little day to day tasks that build up because they aren't terribly urgent, but if I don't do them then I wind up having to write them over and over again from week to week. Before I know it, it's been a month since I promised my friend that I would burn that CD for her and I still haven't done it!

My problem is, I am terribly "out of sight, out of mind." So if my tasks are behind a tab somewhere, they are forgotten indefinitely. But if I write everything on my weekly pages that I want to do, the low-priority tasks mingle with the more urgent ones, my page fills up with tasks, and I get overwhelmed and don't know what to do next.

I need a more efficient system! Maybe I need to use a prioritization system to rank urgency of tasks on my weekly page. Maybe I need to write categorized Goals and Tasks lists and look at them every day to schedule tasks so that longer-range things don't get put off too long.

How do YOU use your Filofax to handle day to day tasks, longer-range/ non-urgent tasks, and tasks related to larger goals?? Do you have categorized lists like Home, Work, School, etc? How do you decide what to do when?

A Tumbleweed Rolls Through

I must join Nan in expressing my regret that, due to an unhappy confluence of circumstances, Philofaxy is gathering some dust. Fear not: It has nothing to do with my laziness. In fact, I am the opposite of lazy right now. I am away for work for about three weeks, and working 12 to 15 hours a day, every day. (Lawyer. Trial.)

I have barely used my Filofax in the past week. It's not for lack of work: Tasks and projects are coming at me fast and heavy. I am sure that a better Filofaxer than Philofaxer would be deploying all Filofax features with stunning effectiveness right now. But I, as a fool befuddled by the chaos surrounding me, have regressed to the planning equivalent of the fetal position: A running tally on a legal pad.

I am using a consecutive numbering system on the legal pad, so I have an absolute tally of all the tasks that I have assigned myself. I'm up to about 45, of which probably 38 are complete. I figure that by the end of the whole thing I will have a few hundred items listed, and they will all be crossed off and I will laminate the lists and frame them as a memento of this craziness.

Probably not. I am more likely to burn them. Or lose them in the drunken stupor that will envelop me after trial ends.