I’ve talked previously about my balancing act of trying to get everything done that needs to get done while simultaneously trying to make sure I’m doing the right things. It’s a juggling act that I’m not very good at on a day-in, day-out basis. Sure, some days I’m right on top of my game, setting reasonable expectations for what needs to be accomplished and then getting those things done. Other days the list is long and the accomplishments are few.

While it’s reasonable to expect that there will be some interruptions along the way, I have a really hard time keeping the daily “little tasks” off the list and concentrating on the bigger tasks. I’m working towards the GTD-inspired idea of project lists, but I’m finding the management of the project lists beyond my current abilities.

To say the least, it’s frustrating. I don’t mean that “darn, that’s too bad” shoulder-shrugging kind of frustrating. I mean the kind that makes me want to bang my head against the wall and scream kind of frustrating.

I guess it’s a good thing I work alone from my house. Fewer witnesses, you know?

But seriously, I just can’t seem to keep from engaging in “list creep”. You know, where you have a few things that you need to accomplish, and you know you can get them done if you focus on them. But there are all these other things that also need to get done, and some of them will make life SO MUCH BETTER. So I’ll add them to the list. Then a couple more. Pretty soon I’ve got 20-30 things on the list and I can’t prioritize. The laundry needs moved from the washer to the dryer. The next blog post needs to be written. I just received 50 e-mails in the past hour, so they need processed. The phone’s ringing.

Oh, and I didn’t check a danged thing off my list. Shoot. (OK, “dang” and “shoot” are probably not what I said, but “Clean up my language” has been on the list so long that it’s starting to make an impact and I don’t cuss nearly as much as I used to. Seriously, I don’t!)

So I’m trying something new. Well, it’s not actually new, but it’s “new again”. That is, it’s an old idea that I’ve used before with a new twist.

I started logging what I’m doing during the day. I even created an Activity and Time Logging Form. My idea is that I’m going to log what I’m doing to help determine how productive I really am. If you read my post about my weird time schedule, you’ll notice that this form doesn’t really fit that model. I actually have a two-pager that I print double-sided that has all 24-hours divided into 30-minute slots.

You’ll also notice that I have three columns for each time slot, Scheduled, Primary, and Secondary. If I have an “hard items” that need to be done at a certain time, they go into the Scheduled column. The theory is that the Scheduled and Primary columns will end up being the same…unless something changes in my schedule. Yeah, like schedules ever change. Oh wait.

I put what I did during the time slot in the Primary and Secondary column. I don’t so much use them to break up the slot into two 15-minute segments, but rather put something like Client Work into the Primary and Roll Laundry into the Secondary. Swapping the laundry from the washer to the dryer, throwing the dried clothes on the bed to be folded, and starting another load in the washer didn’t take all that much time, but it did break up my primary task. So I record it. Sometimes I’ll squeeze a couple things into the Secondary column.

Then I have three sections in the rightmost column. Planned represent those tasks that need to get done, but don’t have specific times associated with them. I’ve got 12 slots there. Realistically, I’m not usually able to get 12 discrete tasks done in a day, so putting more there was counter-productive. If I had 20 slots, many days I would fill them up. Then I’d have 8+ (probably closer to 12) planned tasks that hadn’t gotten done. That creates a psychic toll as you get a smaller percentage of things done. Also having 12 slot forces me to concentrate on those things that are really important that must be done today. If it’s not trash day, then “taking out the trash” may or may not be on there. But it’s certainly not a high-priority item (like I said, as long as it’s not trash day. Around here missing trash day is practically a criminal offense).

I added Errands as a section so that I would have a fighting chance at remembering all the places that I need to go. With them listed out it’s also possible that I can stack them together and actually do them in an efficient manner. We live in a small city (population around 40,000), and despite how small it is, it’s pretty easy to end up running back and forth across town and to all four corners to get things done. At least I can make an attempt at being efficient by listing and then ordering the errands. It’s also a good place to put errands as they arise.

Finally, I added the To Buy section for two reasons. One, without it I had unused space, so I might fill it with additional Planned items, and honestly I have a hard time keeping track of a paper shopping list. It’s another area that I’m working on, but for now, the To Buy section works great for me. I’m forgetting fewer things at the store this way, especially on shorter and smaller trips.

So, I’ve been tracking everything I’ve done from waking up to going to bed on a sheet like this for the better part of this month. I haven’t done the analysis yet, I’m going to try and get a month’s data collected and then I’ll do some analysis.

I’m hoping that the results help with a couple things. First off, I want to show myself that I am somewhat productive, but I need to understand how my brand of productivity works. I just can’t decided if I’m better going for long stints, or whether I can jump in and out of various tasks.

Secondly, I’m going to color code the time slots to prove to myself that I’m a social media addict. Yeah, I know it. But I’m having a hard time weaning myself. I do some social media tasks for work, so those are OK…but the social media for fun needs to be contained or at least recognized for what it is.

Thirdly, I’m hoping that I can figure out a better way to manage my tasks and projects, and I can use this data collection as a precursor to an improved method of getting the right things done when they need to be done.

And in case you were wondering, I’m digging back into Getting Things Done by David Allen again to try and really use more of his principles.

Honestly, I felt a little guilty in the post about David Allen and GTD, so I’m going to try and take some of my own advice.