I can remember that new millennium promise to become a “paperless” society. That didn’t work out so well, and if anything, we use more paper as we download receipts, print emails and make backups of our digital files. We just love paper.
A decade later, I committed to reduce my paper usage by 75% – eliminating client paper files, storing more in Dropbox and refusing paper receipts. I even shed my appointment book for Apple Calendar. At first, I worried I’d forget an appointment or book it in the wrong month, but my eCalendar quickly had me asking why I waited so long – as my schedule now synced across all devices.
I have to confess that I’m a compulsive list maker – projects, goals, reports, you name it and you’ll find a number or bullet point in front of it. So, when I heard about a productive “life hack” to manage my work flow and personal tasks – I was hesitant to adopt the idea.
Here it is: dump your to-do list and use your calendar for all things important.
Author Srini Rao believes the most successful people work from a calendar. Using a calendar to organize your goals is more effective because our lives are dictated almost entirely by units of time. Think about it, we’re programmed to accomplish goals by a deadline. It just makes sense to merge what we have to do with when it needs to be completed.
Putting tasks, reminders and even goals in your calendar keeps them front and center and helps you to work on them every day. The difference between a calendar and a to-do-list is that a calendar accounts for time and promotes accountability. Even low-value tasks like paying bills, follow up emails or thank you notes stay scheduled as reminders nudging you to accomplish them as scheduled. Bottomline, your calendar keeps you accountable.
I’m going to give this life hack a serious try, in fact, I just scheduled to let you know how well it’s going.
