A Task Management Dilemma.

One of the dilemmas I have as a time management and productivity coach is on the side of collecting information. On the one hand, it’s crucial to develop the habit of collecting our ideas, tasks, and commitments, yet on the other hand, if we are collecting too much stuff, we quickly swamp our system, and it becomes overwhelming.

I have wrestled with this for a while, and in the end, I concluded the need to develop the “collecting” habit outweighed the problem of swamping a system. We can always go back into our system and clean it out later, but we need to develop the habit of collecting stuff in the first place to have a system to work with.

The solution to this is to build a filter. A way of reviewing what we collected and deciding whether we want to commit to doing the task or follow through on the commitment.

For instance, the inbox is a great filter. Everything starts in the same place. You collect something and add it to your inbox. Then, later, you go through what you collected and decide what needs to be done (if anything) and when you will do it. You then add it to the appropriate holding pen (project, time sector etc.)

If you are not regularly clearing your inbox, it will become swamped and overwhelming, and instead of clearing a few tasks, you now have 100+ tasks to clear, creating a cycle of procrastination. It’s too many tasks to clear, so you don’t do it. Yet, at the same time, you are adding to the inbox, so within a few days, it’s now 200+ tasks, and this gets repeated until you eventually decide to delete everything and start again.

This doesn’t just manifest itself in your task manager, either. It also occurs in your notes. We collect ideas, articles to read, and so much more and dump these into our notes app. If you are not regularly clearing your inboxes, you will again find yourself swamped and overwhelmed.

So, what can we do about this?

The first step is to commit to clearing your task manager’s inbox every 24 to 48 hours. Once you’ve developed the habit of collecting, you will likely collect around five to fifteen new daily tasks. Committing to spending five to ten minutes a day clearing your inbox will eliminate the overwhelm so many people experience.

With your notes, you are collecting less there, so clearing this once or twice a week should be sufficient.

However, there is one step that is rarely spoken about (or written about) that we should all adopt. That is being very strict about what gets into your system in the first place.

For instance, tasks that emanate from email should never be in your task manager. Instead, email can be self-contained by creating an “Action This Day” folder and dedicating time each day to clear that folder. Then, you only need a recurring task in your task manager telling you to clear your action this day folder in email.

Follow-up and check-in calls are other areas that contain hidden dangers to the efficiency of a task manager. For example, if you have a client you feel you should follow up or check in with in three months, you could add that to your task manager, add a date three months in the future and feel very proud of yourself.

Unfortunately, when you do this with a large number of clients (or potential clients), you are essentially adding random dates, and you have yet to learn what will be happening on a given day in three months’ time. When the day arrives three months later, you will find you have too many tasks, and this task will get rescheduled for another day, and your efficiency drops.

A better approach for this kind of task is to create a spreadsheet. You have complete freedom over what fields to have in your spreadsheet, so you can keep any information there. Telephone numbers, email addresses, notes, and date of last contact (not something easily contained within a task). You only need a single recurring task, reminding you to review your contact sheet to see what calls you need to make that day.

The goal of a task manager is to keep it clean and tight. Each day, when you look at your list, it tells you what needs to be done that day, and whatever is on that list is focused and relevant. You want to avoid wasting time having to curate your list every day. You want to be directed, not having to edit.

Always be bold and delete tasks. I will delete around 40% of what I collect to give you a benchmark. I may collect something in the morning, only to realise I no longer have to do it when I process my inbox. I’m going to delete the task. Other tasks I delete are tasks I realise will bring me no value, and I know if I decide to do it again later, it will always bubble back up, and I can add it again.

So, wherever you are in your productivity journey, make sure you develop the habit of collecting first. That is the priority. Once you are confident you are collecting everything, you want to develop ways to filter out the noise. Only let real, actionable, meaningful tasks into your system. Your inbox is simply a collecting tool. And just like your email’s inbox, there will be quite a lot of junk collected. So never be afraid to delete it.

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