Re. Magnum to-do lists

Subject: Re. Magnum to-do lists
From: geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:53:24 -0600

Richard Mateosian's suggestion of prioritizing your to-do
list into categories (A = urgent, B = do after the As, C =
probably discard) is excellent, but not a panacea. Like any
other organisational tool, it's only a tool and you
shouldn't use it blindly.

My "C" list includes dozens of things I'd like to do when
time permits. When some of the A and B items are done, I
can promote any Cs that are still relevant or that are more
relevant because of a change in context. Examples:

- Many books on my "read them someday" list are Cs, but
when I run out of A books, I won't have to look far for
replacements.

- Listing something, even a C, means that the idea seemed
important at the time. Less important than the As and Bs,
but that doesn't trivialize it. Moreover, some Cs are quick
to accomplish, and make excellent filler when the time
between As is too small to fit in a B.

Size per se ain't an indicator of performance, Richard. My
to-do list is about a dozen pages long, but that's because
the list is a wordpro file arranged as a calendar. Every
day when I boot my computer, the first thing I see once
booting ends is that wordpro file, with a list of
priorities staring me in the face. It's trivial to shuffle
them around to reflect changes in priority. More than half
of the to-dos are birthday reminders, seasonal tasks that
are Cs now but that become As later in the year, reminders
that tomorrow is a vacation and that I shouldn't come to
work <grin>, and so on. But the current A list is far
shorter, as you suggest (currently about 6 items).

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.


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