--- title: "Rework, chop up your tasks, and the evolution of my to-do lists" author: "Stan Voo" url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/rework-chop-up-your-tasks-and-my-to-do-lists published: 2010-05-30 summary: "Rework told me what I'd just worked out myself: write down even two-minute tasks. And after notebooks, planners and to-do apps, my lists finally landed in one Google Doc." --- # Rework, chop up your tasks, and the evolution of my to-do lists On [Sergey Korkin](http://korkin.com)'s advice I'm now reading [*Rework*](http://37signals.com/rework/) and finding a whole lot of useful advice in it.\ For example, that you should split your tasks into the smallest parts that can be done straight away and quickly. And only a few days before that, I had watched myself work for a while and come to exactly the same recommendation. I used to think it was pointless to put tiny tasks that take literally a couple of minutes on my to-do list: just opening the notebook or the reminder app, phrasing the task and writing it down would take almost as long.\ But it turns out my mind is so unstable that I often forget to do even such small things, switching easily to something else: the phone rang, an email came in, oops, what was I doing? Probably this... I hope, I mean I think, many people run into the same problem. I try to solve it by writing down even the smallest things and by constantly checking what to do next. By the way, I'll also tell you how I changed the medium for these reminders and to-do lists. I've been looking for the best way to keep to-do lists for a long time: **1. An A5 notebook.** The most common way. The minuses: - you either have to keep copying tasks onto new pages, or keep looking through old notes for tasks that aren't crossed out; - you can't regroup tasks by topic; you need a stable system of lists, otherwise it's copy, copy, copy; - not to mention a dated diary: that's probably good for more important people with lots of meetings and schedules fixed in time.[^1] **2. An A4 weekly planner.** That's a big notebook where each spread holds a whole week. Completely useless for lists of assorted tasks, better for meetings. The ideal tool for a teacher or a lawyer, I suppose :) **3. All kinds of to-do software:** online services (offline programs are, IMHO, a relic of the '90s and 2000s). None has stuck so far. Maybe because I want to carry my tasks with me, or maybe I'm just not used to them; I haven't tried that many. **4. A clipboard for A4 sheets.** Write as much as you like, arrange the sheets, mark them however you want, and then try to make sense of it all. Improvisation in the free-artist style, with as much organization. **5. And, attention, a new turn in my productivist evolution:** a to-do list in a text document in Google Docs. Ha! One sheet, all the lists in one place:\ by date for the next three or four days,\ lists by topic, by person, a shopping list. Plus color-coding for tasks tied to particular places (the ones to do with the office, for example). That's full-on [kairos](http://vocable.ru/dictionary/655/word/%D5%F0%EE%ED%EE%F1+,+%EA%E0%E9%F0%EE%F1/), planning by situation rather than by the clock! :) Read [Gleb Arkhangelsky](http://www.improvement.ru/), the Russian time-management author. It's now my favorite medium. I don't know for how long... The only problem is that I can't edit tasks from my PDA: the mobile version of Docs doesn't allow it yet (yes, yes, Windows Mobile with Internet Explorer. I either need to swap the device for something running Android, or find a suitable Windows Mobile browser). Still, nothing stops you from crossing tasks off on a desktop computer when you get to the office or home. For me that's not a problem: I don't often do things away from home or the office. P.S. For anyone who wants a quick look at [*Rework*](http://37signals.com/rework/): people post quotes and opinions on Twitter under the [#rework](http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23rework) tag, and there's a short summary here: [Rework: Cheat Sheet](http://gnatgnat.com/2010/05/rework-cheat-sheet/). [^1]: For tasks fixed in time, the easiest thing for me is Google Calendar, especially since I set it up to sync with the calendar on my mobile phone (er, my PDA, to be precise).