Smart ways of work organisation
In this article we analyse one popular method of task management share 3 simple and efficient practices to enhance work organisation.
We also advise on one specific activity which should be avoided at all cost.
Daily to-do lists – pro et contra
One of the most popular methods of task management is a daily to-do list.
Normally, it works in the way of taking a piece of paper and writing down a list of tasks to be done in the current day. After a task gets accomplished, you strike it off from the list. In this way, you see what is done already and what is still left to work on.
The strongest side of this method is its simplicity for everyday use. It does not demand any specific equipment, particular skills or access to the internet. A pen and a piece of paper is enough.
To-do list demands a bare minimum of equipment
At the same time, a to-do list is only a basic form of work organisation – it is better than nothing, but it is nothing compared to something better.
The to-do list allows us to manage only some simple routine tasks.
This method does not suit for organising complex projects, running a business or cooperating with a team.
So, let’s observe some other practices which will allow us to improve work organisation.
Record everyday activity
The easiest and very powerful practice to raise the efficiency of our work is recording all the activities we perform during the day.
By all, we mean all of them entirely – including such important ones as sleeping and doing nothing.
In other words, we record at least 24 hours of time each day. It takes up to 5 minutes daily and brings enormous benefits.
First, it gives us an objective and adequate picture of our life. Now we can see what we are actually paying attention to.
Second, it allows us to stay focused on important activities and not get lost in meaningless ones.
Third, it develops a whole new attitude to our attention – as to a highly valuable asset. We start to see that we do not have much and what the expression “paying attention” actually means.
After 2–3 weeks of recording all daily activities, we will see a considerable improvement in productivity and inner discipline.
Besides that, this is highly enjoyable practice, since we are literally writing a chronicle of our life.
Recording all our activities creates an objective picture of our life
Write ideas as tasks
While recording our everyday activities, we naturally start to pay more attention to our actual life. Which, in its turn, gives us new (and old) ideas about activities we would like to perform.
Those ideas shall not be forgotten!
We want to develop a useful habit of writing down all our ideas in the form of tasks, projects and events.
Ideas which we write down become our tasks
Our memory is a valuable asset with restricted capacity, thus the last thing we want to do is to overload it with illusionary ideas.
Illusions are ideas which will never be accomplished. And we never accomplish ideas we forget about.
Ideas which we do not record become illusions.
If we are serious about our ideas, we show our respect by writing them down.
We write down all ideas we want to accomplish
Work upon weekly plans
The final habit which will dramatically improve our productivity and help to overcome chronic procrastination is utilising the practice of working upon weekly plans.
Weekly plan is a list of tasks and events we want to accomplish this week.
At the beginning of this article we already showed that working upon to-do lists is not the best organising routine.
The to-do list is just another name for a daily plan.
Daily plans are elementary form of work organisation
So it is obvious enough that a weekly plan would be a 7 times more powerful tool with a 7 times wider perspective. Instead of 7 daily plans, we can have 1 weekly plan and organise our work in mush more efficient and adequate way.
It would be fair to say that each and every daily plan (to-do list) should be composed upon a respective weekly plan.
Another powerful benefit of a weekly plan is that it allows us to focus our attention on things which matter. Paying attention to a weekly plan instead of wasting attention on endless scrolling is a smart thing to do.
In no time we will see how our projects and ideas, which seemed to be so complicated, suddenly start to find their place in our everyday life.
Weekly plan is a 7 times more powerful tool compared to a daily to-do list
Stop scrolling already
It is difficult to overestimate the amount of people who damage their brains with endless scrolling on a daily basis.
In fact, official data shows that the number of active users of TikTok amounts to 1.04 Billion people. With an average time spent on TikTok to be 95 minutes per user per day.
Which equals to 1.65 Billion hours, or 68.75 Million days, or 188’365 years. It is a lifetime of 2’545 people! These numbers would be even more depressing if we would add Facebook (1.69 Billion hours) and Instagram (967 Million hours)…
Taking into consideration an average lifespan of 75 years, those numbers would mean that an average TikTok user spends a total of 7.3 years of its life on scrolling.
Since TikTok and other types of social media offer nothing useful except endless scrolling, all the attention people pay to those applications is basically pure waste.
Imagine how many houses could be built, how many cars could be repaired, how many trees could be planted, how much plastic could be recycled, how many streets could be cleaned, how many inventions could be made, how many bugs could be fixed, if we use at least half of that wasted attention on valuable activities…
Scrolling does not make us smarter and provides zero value
Do not be like them, be like us
Do not be like those who destroy their intelligence with endless scrolling.
Be like us, who record all daily activities, write down all ideas and works upon weekly plans.
Stay focused and get smarter.
Use ByCycle to improve work organisation
On ByCycle we did our best to integrate the most efficient practices of self-organisation. We put some efforts into making such practices be intuitive and joyful for everyday use.
We created a simple Calendar and attached a Weekly Plan.
We cut the amount of clicks to the minimum possible level. Any type of work can be created with 2-3 clicks (sic!). Tasks can be added to the Weekly Plan with 1-2 clicks.
To record our genius ideas, we developed a cute and functional Notepad.
And yes! We cleaned scrolling off wherever it was reasonably possible.
ByCycle is a beautiful and simple tool for work planning and team collaboration.
Try ByCycle for free and see how it works for you.
Check our gallery for more pictures of ByCycle.
For any questions or comments, feel free to contact us here.
