Creating Schedules

[gus]

Hello everyone,

I've recently been trying to improve my life, which has led me to writing a schedule that I hope to put myself on.

The problem with this is that it uses certain blocks of time for certain activities. I found myself either running out of time or finishing the task far too early. For example, I'm reading multiple books, a chapter of each a day. I've set aside an hour for each chapter. One of the books, which is a grammar book with exercises and questions at the end of the chapter, I finished in 70 minutes. The other book's chapter was finished in about 30 minutes.

Acknowledging that the time each eat is going to take will vary from day to day, I don't think this time block scheduling is going to work out. Some tasks I'll waste too much time on by waiting for the next time block, and some will interrupt the time blocks of other tasks, shortening them.

There are a lot of areas I'd like to be working on right now, each of which I'd like to work on daily. So, this leaves me with a couple of questions.

1) How would I write some type of schedule that I could stick to without wasting time?

2) A simple TODO list might work, but then how would I keep myself focused?

I'd like something not so rigid, but that would also allow me to work on everything and make some adequate progress in each.

Thanks guys(used to refer to both men and women ),
Gus

[Ilya]

You can have a fixed timetable as you do now, but have a TODO list of "filler tasks" in case you finish early.

For the cases when you can't fit in your slot, you may want to practice your estimations.
For each task, write down the estimate you make and then the actual time it took to complete the task. Then analyze what is the cause of the difference. On the next step, try to anticipate the similar causes for the new tasks you estimate. In some time you will get better with estimating.

If the tasks are too long to fit into the slot, try breaking them down into smaller ones. It will also make estimates easier.

Another useful technique is timeboxing. If you know that you have one hour to complete a task, adjust quality to fit into allotted time. It is better to produce a crappy but complete report, than to produce a quarter of a brilliant but unfinished report.

Or, you can use GTD methodology, that will allow you to use a todo list and stay focused. It will require a rather intensive set-up stage, and maintenance, but it does the trick.

[RT Wolf]

^ Yar. I agree with Ilya about the Getting Things Done thing. But if you're doing that stuff at home, do remember to set yourself a sort of "work day" otherwise your work will bleed into everything else in your life and vice versa. Clear edges are important.

HTH.

[John Hill]

Maybe you need to ask yourself are you where you want to be? Once you know the answer to that maybe you can more easily decide what is the best time schedule for you to use to get you where you need to be.

John

Attracting People.com

[Kaspian]

My husband makes To-Do lists with estimates of how long things will take. Since he kept a time log in the beginning, he has records of how long things actually took, and now he has a good sense for how much time to allot. He assigns each task a number to indicate how important and urgent each task is and uses that ranking system to decide what to work on first (or next). During working hours that aren't scheduled with something specific, he starts at the beginning of the list and works his way through the day's tasks until the next meeting/appointment/whatever.

I suggest that you continue making your schedule, but with a "rule" change or two:

You read the 70-minute chapter until you're done, even if it means you have to take a break in the middle. When finished, read the 30-minute chapter. After that, begin Task #3, even if it's not "scheduled" for another 20 minutes.

Alternate: You stop reading the 70-minute chapter at the end of 60 minutes. When you finish the 30-minute chapter, you can either go back and finish the 70-minute chapter, or you can begin the next task on the list.

Basically, instead of using up the extra time in the block with "filler" activities, do something productive.