Get Everything Done

as lists systems are always complicated with a tendency to expend to infinitum I wonder if there could be a better way to do stuff I mean visioning certain goals for a month for example and then dividing each of them per week, day focusing not on details but on the big results to obtain for each of them.

So there wont be any list but two mind map one for the goals it's big picture or steps and another for planning weekly and day per day

Is it silly ? Does anyone tried this way of doing stuff ?

Productive Flourishing's Momentum system does that. Each level (year, season, month, week, day) you list your overall goals and important events. Then, with the overall goals in mind, divide into goals for the next level down -- but only for the current one. This season is divided into months. This month is divided into weeks. Each line has room for only a few words. Just enough to know if you're on track. To that, I add an estimate of hours per line, as a sanity check, and leave more free time on the month form than the week form.

http://www.productiveflourishing.com/momentum-planners-guide/

The current month or two are free downloads, for month, week, and day. It's only $12 for all of 2018, including the last bit of 2017.

I used the monthly and weekly levels earlier this fall. They were uncomfortable to fill in, but produced great results!

My biggest frustration was the limited number of tasks per level. I wanted to work on more than 5 projects a week!

But, when I used it, I was on-task for more hours than usual, so ended up doing more. I also moved my routines to a habits chart, and combined Little and Often projects into a few larger projects and some daily-ish habits. I don't know if the season and year forms, with limited number of projects, would be more frustrating than useful. I have a lot of long and slow projects.

+++++

Another option is my Milestone Chart, from 2013, which combines all the levels onto one chart.
https://cricketb.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/new-time-management-tool-milestone-chart-with-long-term-planning/

Across the top list projects. Down the left list dates. For the example, assume it's now January.

The first row is the current year. The second row (for the moment) is next year. Maybe add a few more years. In each cell, just a few words of what you hope to do on the project, and any deadlines.

Insert 12 rows between the 2 year rows, one per month. Fill in the cells.

Insert 4 or 5 rows between Jan and Feb, one for each week in Jan. Fill in the cells.

Insert 7 rows between the 1st and 2nd weeks in Jan, one per day. Fill in the cells

Rows for decade and hours are overkill, at least for me. Season is sometimes useful.

The example shows date each unit starts, but next time I'd use "2017" or "two weeks ending". Maybe use darker colours for larger units so they stand out.

Don't get too detailed too far in advance. It's a waste of time. I found planning each unit at the last minute worked fine, as long as I looked a bit in advance while planning. (On January 27, plan February's weeks. At that time, look ahead to March, see a deadline March 7, and plan accordingly. Actually, in Dec 2016 I plan 2017, look ahead to 2018, see the March deadline, and plan accordingly.)

A column for special events to plan for and around was useful. Week I'll be covering for coworker. Vacation (plus planning and recovery). Don't plan as much on those weeks!

As I used it, the columns shifted. In the summer, Guild work split into "plan guild year", and "plan classes I will teach". Studying and teaching were all in one column so it was obvious if I planned too many things at once.

Some information was repeated in multiple rows, especially for big projects, to remind me to stay on schedule, or at least not accept commitments that would interfere.

+++

Lastly, my monthly planning is currently a list of projects, with a few steps per project, and week listed beside each step. There's also a page for "not this month". A few very long projects got their own pages, and I copied this month's steps to the month page. Great for status review and planning projects, and counting total hours committed for the month. Not so great for seeing total hours committed per week (although I could add columns for that).

I review it every week, very quickly, each line "on track", "finished", or "problem". Investigating problems is not part of the review.

+++

I keep thinking I should go back to the big chart, but setting it up takes a lot of time, and if I do the full thing, it has to be done on the computer. (I don't print that tiny!)