Managing Your To Do’s A Partial Book Review Of Bit Literacy

Bit Literacy - Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload is a book written by Mark Hurst. It covers many different tips to help improve your productivity in today’s age of information overload.

We already reviewed Mark’s complete book later we will be going deeper into Mark’s Bit Literacy by going on a Media Diet and Inbox Management. Today let’s do the To Do List.

Here is one more simple way to improve your productivity.

One of the things Mark presents in his book is a very effective style of handling the long list of things you have to do.

The “To Do” List

First you need to create a “to do list” or a “To Do”. There are several products available, but Mark recommends choosing one with about the fewest features possible. Mark offers his software that is an inexpensive online tool as being the best solution because it was built to do exactly this.

Here are two important guidelines:

• To Dos are action items.
• To Dos are not intended to be lists.

An action item can be Go Shopping. You need to create a separate list associated with the Go Shopping action.

To Do Actions

1. Each To Do is assigned to a specific date
2. You can create To Dos by email
3. Each To Do is ranked by priority
4. Each To Do can contain a summary

Set The Date

Each To Do is allocated a specific day to be done. They can be moved as far into the future as possible so you don’t think about them until you have to. If you have a cake to pick up in 10 days, any time thinking about picking it up beforehand is as waste of time. If you have time available and choose to, you can start on the To Do list for future tasks.

Use Emails To Yourself As Reminders

Users should be able to create To Dos with their email. There are tricks you can do, such as emailing yourself at a future date. If someone tells you to call back in 3 months, it is possible to place an email in most systems with a future mail date. Forward yourself the email to arrive in your inbox just before the date in question. This keeps you totally on top of all situations.

Set Priority

You must give each To Do a priority. You should list your daily To Dos in the sequence of importance. This way if you do not accomplish all your actions, the least important is the one that is missed.

Summary To Follow Up With

Create an appropriate follow-up and completion process. Every To Do that you delegate must be confirmed as having been accepted by the person in question. The person who receives a To Do must send a completion notice.

This may see like micro-managing at first, but if you assign a To Do and the action is not completed, it is you that will probably have the problems. Assigning a To Do that is due in 3 weeks deserves a follow-up if the person assigned the task has not replied on time. That length of time will differ depending on each circumstance.

A To Do System Helps You Get Things Done

If you spend a little time to select a good system you will find one to help you get more things done.

Mark Hurst’s book, Bit Literacy - Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, gives you a simple approach. It is easy for just about everyone to implement.

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