Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life. ~Alan Lakein
I take time management seriously. After seeing my first pocket Day-Timer in college, I was hooked. I think I still have one in a drawer in my home office. There’s something symbolic. Quickly, I noticed that there was a high degree of correlation between those who used Day Timers and success. To me it became a sign of someone who had their act together. But, over the years I have learned that’s not always the case.
Since college I have tried countless methods and solutions. Everything from Covey to GTD to Kanban. I’ve read so many books and articles on the topic that I’ve lost count. In the end I have learned several things: there is not one perfect solution, everyone has an opinion, and it is actually quite simple. It all comes down to what David Allen teaches – you have to have a system that you can trust. It really is that simple. But it doesn’t work unless you “pick it and stick it”.
In our pursuit of the perfect solution we miss out on some systems that really work. We just think there must be something better. If we don’t stick with something we never quite get traction. We never learn how good it can be and we never develop a system we truly trust. It’s the trust piece that keeps us trying new things.
Maybe this makes sense for me because I have a solution that adequately addresses all the concepts I believe are most important. It allows me to address the best of Covey, GTD, and Kanban. My primary tool right now is Trello. It allows me to see everything visually, but add details. But there are many other good products that I continue to wonder, “could this one be better?” So if you are looking for something might I suggest you check out some of my favorites: Todoist, Wunderlist, Firetask, Toodledo, KanbanFlow, Secret Weapon (Evernote), WorkFlowy, and there are others. Now, some of these I continue to use for other purposes (Evernote & Workflowy) but I continue to use Trello for all of my tasks and time management needs. The key is find one and use it.
Obviously, I need to take my own advice and pick it and stick it. I am finding this to be true in other areas as well, but I’ll leave that for another post.
photo credit: stirwise via photopin cc
