My column for the June issue of the award-winning Tetbury Advertiser
As I delete the latest task management app from my phone, my quest for the perfect automated to-do list resumes, in parallel with my perpetual search for the ideal handbag.
When I downloaded this cutely-named app, it seemed full of promise. I imagined my days streamlined and efficient, my desk and my conscience clear by wine o’clock every day. However, I quickly went off it when it began to take over the decision-making process. It refused point-blank to allow me to change my mind about priorities or even to move incomplete tasks to the next day.
I really need an action-list app with a mañana setting, although the ever-patient editor of this esteemed magazine may disagree.
The last straw was the app’s highhandedly adding events to my calendar that were of no relevance to me. Bank Holidays I could accept, and I don’t mind a reminder of the Queen’s birthday, but the Battle of the Boyne? Really? All that did was make me feel inadequate that I couldn’t think of an appropriate to-do action to add to my list. “Wear orange,” suggested one waggish friend when I protested the fact on Twitter.
Which brings me to a different approach to productivity management: the What Not to Do list, for logging time-wasting things to avoid. If you know of any app designers out there, tell them I think there’s a gap in the market for this. I don’t mean only for recording evergreen items such as “Don’t spend too much time on Twitter (except to “like” @LionsTetbury’s wisecracks, obviously)”. I formulate new ideas for mine every day.
This morning, for example, I’d have added: “Don’t match up the pile of odd socks that your husband has discarded on the bedroom rug while searching his wardrobe for a pair – he is not a toddler. He can sort his own socks.” Although to be fair a toddler would handle this task very well, if at the stage of enjoying shape-sorter toys and memory games of pairs.”
I must add to my action list: “Recruit affable toddler.”
So it’s back to the drawing board for me – or at least to pen and paper. A handwritten list by my keyboard will have to suffice. Sometimes old technology really is the best option, just as old wives’ tales so often prove to be founded in fact. Old-fashioned does not mean obsolete. My favourite sage old saying? “The best way to get something done is to do it.”
As in writing my column for the Tetbury Advertiser.
(You see what I did there?)
Tick!
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Love it, Debbie! Glad I didn’t have any tea in my mouth or I might have spit it all over the keyboard. 🙂
Good fun! Affable toddler – our nearly three year old grandson would probably be able to sock-sort – he is into anything ‘grown-up’, especially ‘helpful’ stuff! (Grab the phase while it’s there comes to mind…)
Of course, the trouble is by the time they’re big enough to be useful, their motivation may have gone… I have a very fond memory of finding my daughter, aged about 2, had decided to “sort” all my embroidery and tapestry threads. She had very carefully arranged them into a kind of toddler art installation in the middle of the room, and was walking slowly around it, looking at it from all angles before deciding where to place the next piece of thread. Her focus and concentration for one so young was astonishing – it all meant a great deal to her and she was so proud of her finished achievement, and so was I! I only wish I’d taken a photo to preserve the magic moment.