How to efficiently organise your time and tasks

Today, i would like to share how I manage my tasks and time. For me, it was a long and quite stony way, and it finally seems to work quite well, so I decided that it is worth sharing.
Through all the years, I seemed to always have the same problems:

1. Some tasks seemed to always fall off the rock, like taking care of websites and professional accounts, reading papers, or blog writing :-)

2. In quiet times, it all seemed under control. However, the slightest additional task threw me out of control and I felt stressed. When I feel stressed, I am not very productive any more.

3. I have found tools to manage tasks, typically some sort of hierarchically orgnised lists of tasks. Well, I know my tasks and their deadlines, but those did not translate for me in a schedule. Deadline driven work is good, but not when all deadlines crash on you at the same time. Furthermore, I could not find a tool, where the duration of the task is provided — e.g. 15 minutes for this and 3 hours for that.

4. Calendar is of course also an option and I cannot imagine my life any more without some sort of Google calendar. However, when I schedule tasks there to be done, I loose the deadline information — i.e. is it really necessary this task is completed today or not? Can I move it? However, here I have task durations.

Well, now I figured out a mixed way of planning.

First, I created a new calender, visible only to me, called Task allocation. Here, I reserve time slots for all tasks I know I will have. Currently, I have time allocated for teaching, research and paper writing, networking, community service, running projects, and continuous education. I have reserved those slots in the mornings mostly, when I am most productive and focused. The afternoons are „free“ to arrange meetings and to accommodate administrative matters. I use a light grey color for this calender to make it well visible, but kind of a background, since it actually just for organisation, not real tasks.
Then, I started using Todoist. This is a task management service, which also has all those hierarchical orderings, projects and deadlines and stuff, but you can also sync with Google drive, defining exactly how long it will take to complete. The Todoist tasks are yet a separate calender, so I can clearly see which tasks are still to be done (red color).

Once a new task arrives, let us say a review to do, then I look first for the next available community service time slot. If I have one available before the deadline, I accept the review and allocate a Todoist task with the appropriate amount of time in that slot. If I have lots of slots available before the deadline, I use the last one, so that I am not tempted to move it around later and I keep the more recent slots for urgent tasks.

If I get an administrative task or a meeting request, I can check for the truly free slots (not the grey ones!) — if available, I can accept, otherwise not. Real meetings are marked yet again in a separate calendar, so I know they cannot be moved around. The most important rule is to start saying NO and not to use up (or misuse) your allocated time.

Once per week (usually Friday or on the weekend), I look at the schedule for next week. If there are free grey slots (remember, those were allocated for some tasks like research), then I am free to allocate non-deadline driven tasks, like doing some research, working on papers, preparing new teaching materials, etc. The afternoons are still left to whatever comes later and urgently.

During the week, I always see my Todoist tasks together with my meetings and admin matters on the calendar. Once you finish one task, you can either delete it from your calender or you can mark it done from Todoist. It is important to note that if you do not finish the task for whatever reason, Todoist will keep it at the top of your task list, until you either reschedule it or mark it done. This is very nice and and clear advantage compared to a pure calender driven organisation, where your tasks remain somewhere in the previous days and slowly disappear from your view…

My rule is: once you finish the tasks for today, you are free to do whatever you feel like. Today I felt like writing this blog article :-)

Since I use this system, I am more in control of my tasks. I feel less stressed and I have the much needed free space for creativity and real research. I hope this also helps you in keeping track of all your tasks and obligations.