Get Everything Done

Hello everyone. I’ve been considering using two lists: one for work and one for personal. Right now I use one for both, but have been curious if I would be more effective if I didn’t see personal stuff while at work or work stuff while at home. Has anybody tested one versus two? What pros and cons come from two?

If you have a clear cut "9 2 5 ish" gig going, it is probably better to leave work at work and home at home. Unless your discretionary "list" time at work is not occurring often enough to warrant it's own list.

It's a different thing if you often take work home with you and conversely do personal things at the factory. Maybe it is a bit of a decision of how you want to design your life.

Now, having said all this, the nerd kicker is of course using two lists. Why? It means you can experiment with two systems at the same time! If that doesn't lead to world conquest than I don't know what does.

I keep my personal notebook list at work so I can quickly review it, add to it, etc as ideas or tasks arise. I have a task in my work list called "Check personal list?" in case there's a recent task I could take care of quickly.

If you use an electronic system which supports tags and filtering for tags I would recommend to use tags. A task can then have either "Home" or "Office" or both. That way you can see all tasks which you can do in the office, regardless whether they are work or home related.

Thanks for the responses. I do have a 9-5 gig, but sometimes personal things distract me because they need to take priority over some work things, something like calling a business that is only open during business hours. This probably doesn't happen often enough to justify one list in and of itself.

Cricket, good point about writing in whatever notebook is handy. That is one of the downsides of two lists, even electronically within the same software--you have to open up the other list if you think of something to do for that list. This sometimes creates a small amount of resistance to writing the stuff down. I suppose I could go back to a dedicated "inbox" that I then sort into list A and list B, but I'd rather not. I like my lists being my idea inbox.

Chris, I have tried filters yes. I kind of dislike all the visual clutter that filters create (it is appended to the end of my task). Also, writing a new task at the end of my filtered list places it right after my last filtered task, instead of at the very end of the list of all filtered and unfiltered tasks.

I've tried two separate lists for the past couple of days. So far I think it has more advantages than disadvantages.

@Cameron, still using workflowy? I like the changes they made recently but until they handle hyperlinks better it is a no-go for me.

@Alan, I forgot about dynalist. Only played with it for a few minute, but it seems great and will be trying it out again. Thanks for the reminder of its exitence

I still use WorkFlowy and I love it. Instead of a hyperlink I just copy and paste the website as a subbullet. It works okay for me for now. Hyperlinks would be nice, but it's definitely not a deal-breaker. I tried Dynalist, but I like WorkFlowy's UI much better. At least as of a couple of years ago.

I have been trying two lists now, and like it better than one. I think two is here to stay for a while.

I am considering using a notebook over WorkFlowy. One of the main reasons is that I always feel like I'm on a device when I'm around my 1-year-old. I don't want him to grow up with his face attached to devices either so I better set a good example.