Here is a simple method for managing the tasks we need to tackle every day, which I have been using for many years.
If, like me, you have to deal with entirely different areas of responsibility, organizing your time becomes even more important. In any case, even if you are lucky enough to spend most of your working hours focused on a single software project, organizing and prioritizing your tasks will help you get better results and make faster progress. If you always feel short on time and suspect you spend too much of it on irrelevant things and too little on what really matters, read on.
Here is what I have learned over the years, including from reading extensively about managing time better and being more productive, both at work and in other areas of life:
- Productivity is not about working more hours. Curiously, being productive can even mean working fewer hours. If you want to use the time you save by working better to do even more and get more results, that’s fine: you have that option.
- Using some kind of task management method, like the one I describe in this article, helps you see which tasks are urgent or important and which ones you can do without. How can a business or project move forward if its priorities are unclear?
- I cannot put an exact number on it, but I can assure you that the more time you spend organizing and planning—even if it is just ten minutes writing down your to-dos in a notebook—the less time you will need to execute them and the less time you will waste switching between them.
- We cannot keep pending tasks in our heads or trust our minds to know what we should do next at every moment. Our minds are affected by fatigue and emotional states, which means we do not always prioritize important tasks well. Besides, our memory is limited.
I have also noticed this: many people who say they do not have time for anything feel that way whether they have a lot or a little work to do, and they do not use any time-management method either.
What happens when we carry around the feeling that we do not have enough time and that something critical could come up at any moment and disrupt the whole day? Exactly: a lot of stress. In general, stress comes from feeling unable to control our own time.
I did not invent the following method, but I can vouch for its effectiveness. It is the ABC method, as simple to use as its name suggests.
The most important part of using this technique is discipline: building the habit of spending a few minutes the night before or at the start of the day writing down the tasks that need to be done. Over time—at least this has been my experience—you can become so attached to this method (along with complementary ones such as Pomodoro and GTD) that you feel a little lost without your task list. Perhaps I am exaggerating, but this reduces the chance of a day or week going by without addressing at least all the urgent and important matters that come with my professional responsibilities (and, in turn, my household responsibilities and entrepreneurial projects).
The worst thing you can do in a professional setting is fail to prioritize your work and let whatever you feel like doing most determine what you do at each moment. Sometimes you can afford that luxury, but not always. I know: ideally, we would all work on something we are passionate about and enjoy. But even the work we love most comes with a batch of tasks we do not particularly enjoy. It is like anything else: traveling always involves the tedious business of buying tickets, arranging accommodation, convincing your girlfriend, and even finding someone to look after your cat for the weekend.
The ABC method consists of creating a list of your pending tasks. I do this every day, but you can also make one for the next two days or for the whole week. Whichever you choose, try not to leave out anything important. In my case, I consider something important if it fits into one of these categories: it contributes positively to the business, improves how the team I lead works, improves the quality of the results, or helps me become more productive.
Next, assign each task a letter: A, B, C, D, or E. You do not have to use them all, but you should use at least the first three. Each letter means:
- A: A top-priority task that must be done before anything else. You should not end the day without completing your A tasks. If you do not do them, there may be negative consequences for your work, business, and so on.
- B: Tasks you should do, but which are less important than A tasks and have milder consequences if left undone. Do not work on a B task while any A tasks remain.
- C: Pleasant tasks whose impact is small if they are not done.
- D: Tasks you can delegate in one way or another.
- E: Tasks that help you identify what you should eliminate to focus more on the work above: irrelevant work that, if left undone, would help you concentrate and manage your time better. For example, skipping an unnecessary meeting.
There is one fundamental rule: never do anything that is not on your task list and marked with one of the letters A, B, C, D, or E. As always, use common sense: if something exceptionally critical comes up in the meantime, the sensible thing is to deal with it, full stop.
Tasks should be as specific as possible. For instance, instead of writing “write a new post,” write “write at least two thousand words for my new post.” And instead of “improve the tests for project X,” write “review the tests for library X and create all the tests for class Y.”
Since our ability to concentrate is limited (and by now I hope you know that multitasking does not exist), tasks should take less than an hour or an hour and a half to complete. If they take longer, they should be broken down. I follow this rule: I can always finish each task I define in less than an hour.
If a task is too broad, we should break it down into smaller tasks. Any project, no matter how complex, can be divided into subtasks, even if that results in a lot of them. I have found that this simple exercise of breaking work into small tasks brings you closer to completing any goal you set. For example, if you want to build a prototype project to publish Amazon deals, where do you start? Grab a notepad or a notebook and break it down as much as you can: analyze the Amazon API, create an affiliate account, build a sample Node.js library client, follow a Vue tutorial for the web interface or read a book or take an online course on the subject, write a couple of pages about the business model, create the initial code repository, and so on. After several hundred tasks, your project will be finished and, if you used the ABC method, you will have done it in less time than you imagined. Many of the project ideas we come up with never get completed because we do not turn them into specific, manageable tasks.
Finally, you can use Trello or Wunderlist to apply this simple method, although I use a paper notebook and cross off each task with a pen as I complete it. Whichever tool you choose, you will discover the wonderful sense of progress that comes from marking a task as done. And as the day goes by and you see yourself crossing tasks off the list, the feeling that you are moving in the right direction and meeting your goals and responsibilities can become addictive.
It is interesting that when you start organizing your day this way, you end up with only a few A tasks, and that nagging sense of urgency begins to fade. Your mind relaxes when it no longer has to wonder what to do next: you look at the list, choose the next task, and get on with it.
Of all the books I have read about productivity and time management over the years, I recommend Brian Tracy’s Time Management. For just a few euros, you can learn to radically change the way you work and the results you achieve.