Looking back at the list of tasks which I did today, let’s see what lessons can be drawn from it.
First of all, you can get a certain amount of information just by looking at the list, without even reading the individual tasks. You can see immediately from the times in bold what my level of activity was as the day progressed. This will vary from person to person, but as for me I started the day with a huge burst of activity which lasted most of the morning in which all the routine minor tasks were cleared. This lasted until I went to the gym. After that I had a slow afternoon, and then picked up again in the evening when my work took on a completely different characteristic.
Note that this information would be difficult to get if I hadn’t put the times in. And it would be still be difficult to follow if each task had its own time. But with the hourly times in bold you can take in at a glance how much activity there was during that hour. A more detailed look will then tell you what sort of activity the hour was made of.
You can also see very clearly how much repetition of tasks there was.
On the whole I did everything I wanted to do. I was particularly pleased to have gone to the gym, to have kept all the zero in-boxes at zero, to have done some good work on my new book draft, and to have kept the list posted throughout the day. The only thing missing from today which I was working on yesterday is the draft for the local association’s marketing plan. But I’ve got over a month to get that finalized, so there is no particular urgency about it.
Since keeping a live list on-line is a considerable burden, I don’t intend to do it any of the other days of this test. But I will keep you posted about how it’s going. I’m looking forward to working tomorrow without that hanging round my neck!