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Add, edit and complete a task To add a new task, click on the New Task button,  or on the +​ button if you are on your iPhone or iPad.This throws up a form for you to enter all the details of your new task. There are a lot of fields on the form, because you can organize your ​task list in all kinds of ways. But for now, put in a title that says in a few words what you are going to do. Add a due date if there is a deadline for your task. And you're done. The new task appears on your task list.​ Tap or double-click on it to pull up the edit form. Here you can make changes to what you put in before. Or add new properties to help with organising your to-do list. Update the note field to help you keep track of progress or link to relevant information on the web. ​When your task is done, check its checkbox on the task list. You can choose to show completed tasks or hide them. TaskAngel saves your information automatically. You don't have to remember to do it yourself. Dates, reminders and repeats If your task has a deadline, give it a due date. And a due time if necessary. Set a reminder if you want. Many things we do don't have deadlines. For example "Buy more AA batteries". In this case, don't set a due date. If you do, it will eventually show up on your list of overdue tasks, and distract you from ones that are genuinely late. Start dates give you another way of scheduling your tasks. You can use them to tell you when to start doing something, or even when to start thinking about doing it. You can hide tasks with start dates in the future by unsetting 'Show Future Starts' in view settings. In this way, you can forget about a birthday until the month before, for example. Reminders are tied only to due dates, not to start dates. TaskAngel doesn’t remind you when a start date comes around. Any task can repeat. You can choose from a variety of repeat patterns. Tasks can be set to repeat regularly (e.g. every week), or to repeat on completion (e.g. repeat a week after I complete this task). Priorities, stars, status and next action Depending on how important a task is, give it a priority of Low, Medium, High, or Top. There is also a Negative priority. This is for tasks that you want to hide temporarily. Use stars to highlight tasks on the task list. This can be another way of selecting important tasks, but you might want to use it in other ways, like "Tasks I want to talk to Derek about". As you work through your tasks, use Status to keep track of progress. There are 10 different statuses - for example, Planning, Active, Waiting or Hold. Next Action is a special status that you will find useful if you are using David Allen's Getting Things Done system (GTD for short). For each of your projects, think about which task you are going to do next, and give it the next action flag. It's a great cure for procrastination! Notes and web links Every task has a note field. It gives you another way of tracking progress or just collecting your thoughts. Notes can be formatted to make them easier to read when you're in a hurry. You can include links to web pages in your notes, then just click on the link to open the page. The note list lets you keep notes independently of your tasks. This is useful for things that span a whole project rather than just one task. Further reading Are you a good project manager? Have a look at this article on how to break a project!

Travelling to and from work can be a slog. But whether you are driving, on a bus or train, or walking it, you can end up popping in headphones to make the transitional time more bearable. But what if you could do more than just grit your teeth and listen to Cardi B on repeat? What if you could actually do some self-improvement while stuck in traffic? People these days tune in to podcasts, rather than sports radio, to hear everything from the best fantasy football stats to true crime mysteries, but there’s a genre of Podcasts that can do more to help you improve your life. There are many self-improvement related podcasts that will turn your commute into time well spent on yourself. But with all the titles to choose from, how do you know what will really work? Now TheZebra.com has put together a comprehensive list of some popular titles for you to try out. The information includes specific episodes from each podcast that are emblematic of what you can expect from the show. Also, they list the length — from just 10 minutes or so to over two hours — so you can listen depending on your preference (and how far you have to go). From large questions of self-help, like the ideas of enlightenment that are covered in “10% Happier” to more specific common-sense tips like in the short segments of “The Daily Boost” there’s sure to be one that is right for your temperament. See the infographic below for a comprehensive list of some of the best in self-help podcasts. Zachary Kee-Clemmer Zachary is our guest author for this post. Zachary is a Content Marketing Specialist at Siege Media

The Importance of Negative Feedback Open and honest communication within an organisation of any size should not just be encouraged but mandated. Although it can be difficult to give and appear even more difficult to receive negative feedback, it’s quite possibly one of the most critical functions of any leader or manager. Constructive Criticism A lot of people perceive a team is successful if everyone is in complete alignment and works harmoniously together. Unfortunately, this is rarely ever the case. That can diminish the team’s effectiveness and productivity. A common psychological phenomenon can result from a team that fails to collaborate. One person starts to influence the group’s decisions — groupthink!There is a commonality between the best athletes in the world. A competitive attitude that often results in a demanding and abrasive personality type. Although it might seem detrimental to the team, these abrasive personalities can influence a stronger team. Michael Jordan was infamous for challenging his teammates openly and directly when he felt they were not working hard enough. If you are not pushing your team to criticise each other, then you are likely missing an essential component of business growth.It might surprise you to learn that over 50 percent of millennials expect regular and in-depth feedback. It might surprise you even more to learn that a whopping majority of 92 percent of employees find negative feedback can improve performance. Be Sincere As former Google and Apple executive Kim Scott suggests in her book on effective management, Radical Candor, you should always care personally when giving negative feedback. Scott recommends giving criticism privately but dishing out praise publicly.In this visual from GetVoIP, you will learn some actionable tips to give and receive criticism more constructively. Implement these ideas into your next one on one meeting, performance review, or skip-level meeting. Your Feedback Over to you! What do you think of this article? Give your feedback in the comments section below. Related Posts Looking for a new way to manage your time? Try the Goal Action System. Are you a good project manager? Or would you like to be one? Read How To Break A Project! Drew Page Drew Page is our guest author for this article. Drew hails from Annapolis, MD but adopted San Diego as his “hometown” after studying at SDSU. He loves learning, writing, and all things creative. When not working, you can find him in the ocean, in the kitchen or in a book. SaveSave SaveSave SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSave SaveSave

Has your homework turned into a nightmare? Are your teachers giving you a hard time about it? Is your mum pleading and sobbing and waving study-lists at you? Is Dad shooting his disappointed look at you? Welcome to Homework Hell. I can get you out. Just read this post, it will put you back in control. Get everyone off your back and get ready for your exams. Your Brain What is the point of homework anyway? Was it invented as torture for kids in the nineteenth century by a staff room of sadistic teachers chuckling over their students’ pain? Thankfully no. To understand why we do homework, we need to understand the brain. It’s a fantastic device. It can keep you going 24x7 for around 100 years. What is more, it never forgets anything. It records everything on an unending videotape. But there is a snag - there is no replay button. That's a problem. Your teachers have taught you all this stuff, and it’s all in there. But there’s so much of it, how do you find anything when you want it? Highways Of The Mind That’s where homework comes in. It gives your brain practise at finding the data you need to pass your exams. When your brain finds something it needs, it builds a pathway so that it can get it again more quickly next time. And the more you use a path, the stronger it gets. When you do homework, you are laying down the pathways for your brain to follow when you are in your exam. The stronger they are, the more successful you will be. You are making highways in your mind. It’s the same when you are training for something physical like playing football or dancing or playing the piano. The more you repeat the exercise, the better you get. Get Ready Have a look at your homework now. Don’t just say “Maths, Ugh!” and turn away with a shudder. Look at it properly. What do you have to do right now? If you’re lucky, maybe some of it is easy and fun. No doubt some is tedious and boring. Also, there might be some scary tasks you can’t do at all. Before you start, get ready. Go somewhere quiet. Get rid of as many distractions as you can. Turn the TV off. No music. Put your phone in another room. Yes, I’m serious. You can do it! Stop crying. Get Started Do the easy tasks first. Get them right but don’t spend any more time on them than you need. Clear them out of the way, and enjoy the feeling of achievement. If you are using paper, put your completed work on a separate pile so you can see it growing. Feels good! Now the boring bits. Things like reading Shakespeare or learning the Periodic Table of Elements or your Times Table. You have to build those pathways in your brain, so get on with it. Repetition is key. If you are learning a poem, learn one line at a time at first, then try to remember verses. And say the poem out loud. Your brain remembers the spoken word much more quickly than text on a page. Have A Break After one hour, give yourself a five-minute break. Go and have a drink of water. Pick one music track and play it. Reward yourself. But don’t start texting your mates or playing a game. Before you know it, your homework will be out the window once more. The Scary Bit Keep going until all you have left is your scary too-hard pile. Oh no! But yes. This pile is good because it’s your best chance to learn something new. Pick the first task and look at it again. Do you know how to do it? If you do, it’s just another of those boring ones so get it done. If you don’t know how to it, think about why not. Do you understand the question? Look at your textbook and try to find an answer to whatever you don’t get. What if you are supposed to write an essay about the "Lord of the Flies" but you haven’t even looked at the book? You are going to have to read it then, a chapter at a time. Don’t try to bluff your way through it using a study text. You can’t build a pathway to something that isn’t there. Get Help If You Need It If all else fails, go back and ask your teacher for help. It’s a good idea to give yourself a day or two in advance of your homework deadline. That gives you a better chance of talking to your teacher when she isn’t already mad at you for not handing it in on time. Keep going until you have finished your homework for today, or you are too exhausted to continue. But don’t give up to soon. You are better at this than you think. Continue to give yourself a five-minute break every hour. It makes your brain perform a lot better, and it helps you keep hold of your motivation to carry on. Reward Yourself The great thing about time is that it passes, and you get to the end of this bout of homework. Yay! Give yourself another reward. Maybe play a game. Watch a film. Or just climb into bed and sleep. Enjoy the moment and celebrate your escape from Homework Hell. Was It Worth It? Yes, it works. But don't just take my word for it. A study of 3,000 students over 15 years by the UK Department of Education showed two to three hours homework a night resulted in better achievements in English, Maths and Science. But don’t overdo it. Research by Stanford University in California has shown that doing more than 3 hours homework can be counterproductive because it increases stress and reduces learning. In their survey of 4,317 students, 56 per cent considered homework a primary source of stress. For example, it can make it hard to sleep at night. So get into a routine of two hours homework a night if you can, and keep the stress levels down. Just remember, homework needn't be hell. Good luck, Andrew How Was It For You? Did this article help you? Please share it with your friends and fellow-sufferers. For more advice on how to manage your time, please visit my blog.

Malware Attack Malware gets everywhere. Larry from Oregon sent an email recently describing some worrying changes to his to-do list. Hi Andrew, Starting today I’ve had 3 tasks show up in my ToDo list. All are the same and about bitcoins. Each has a task name and a note. They seem to show up in TaskAngel for Windows first and then sync to Toodldo and then TaskAngel iOS. Anyone reporting similar occurrences? My first steps were to clear all those tasks from Toodledo, and TaskAngel on iOS and Windows. I then went to Toodledo and blocked Toodledo access on a number of apps. I left Taskangel Windows running and a little while later the same three tasks showed up. Each task says “Forget about bitcoin, there’s a way better coin you can buy.” And each one has a note explaining that Swiss Coin will be the next big thing. I’m still going to do some testing in TaskAngel on my iPhone and on my iPad but since it first shows up on Windows I wouldn’t think they are coming from there. I can’t see anywhere in Toodledo that would show the source (ie if emailed) and I’ll run my anti-virus scan just to be sure I don’t have any issues there. Thank you, Larry The Fix A few hours later Larry found the problem. He had been attacked by malware. Here’s how he fixed it. Hi Andrew, I may have found the source of the unwanted tasks/spam in TaskAngel Windows. I ran Malwarebytes and it reported 4 PUPs: Groovorio, Smart Bar, VBates, Search Protect_App Fish. I noticed they were all shown as extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Interestingly Vivaldi was not mentioned. They are primarily ad servers for browsers. Not sure why they would impact TaskAngel but I assume they thought it was a browser for some reason. It seems these are known irritations that come with free software. Since I’d installed a photo editing app to trial (it’s a Lightroom type photo program that’s open source) a few days ago I decided to uninstall and clean up all folders and traces. I then re-ran Malwarebytes and it didn’t find anything and I haven’t had any further problems with TaskAngel Windows. I also started up the browsers and checked back with Toodledo and am glad to report no more bitcoin type ads/spam. Just passing on in case someone else asks.I’m totally surprised because I’ve never had this kind of infestation and I’m pretty careful. Goes to show free open source is not always a great buy. Larry Protect Yourself We all know about viruses and how to defend against them. But there are bad people out there, and they are getting cleverer. Make sure you run virus protection software regularly. Larry fixed his malware problem using Malwarebytes. It runs on Windows, Mac and Android. Read more about how TaskAngel protects your to-do list from hackers. SaveSave

Security Upgrade Protecting You The security upgrade for TaskAngel is now ready for Windows, iPhone and iPad. And there are other improvements too on Windows and iOS. Here’s the low-down. TaskAngel for Windows Sync with Toodledo is more secure, using HTTPS protocols throughout. It encrypts all communication between TaskAngel and Toodledo, making sure your information is protected against eavesdropping and tampering. So it keeps the hackers away. Read more… Although communication with Toodledo is now more protected, your security can still be compromised by viruses and other malware on your PC. Larry emailed us recently with a report of a problem he discovered, and how he fixed it. Read more… And there’s a new ease of use improvement. TaskAngel gives you more control over the layout of the Task List. It does this with a new ‘Auto Column Widths’ setting in the View menu. When this is on, TaskAngel automatically calculates the column widths, although you can still make adjustments, with restrictions. Alternatively, when ‘Auto Column Widths’ is off, you are free to make whatever adjustments you like. Furthermore, the note panel on the main screen now has a Save button to help secure your text changes when you are editing.As you would expect, we have also fixed more bugs. You can see a list of fixes on our update page. Our latest build for TaskAngel Windows is 3.2.2962 Have you ever wondered about how we choose our build numbers? It’s simple: we have a new one every day. We made our first build of TaskAngel Windows on October 31, 2006, in the days of Windows XP. We’ve come a long way since then! TaskAngel for iPhone and iPad The security upgrade is also available on iOS, so syncing TaskAngel on your iPhone and iPad is more secure, giving you peace of mind. We have also fixed some bugs you told us about: Restored purchases happen without delay Sync has better reliability We resolved some problems with notes formatting Version 1.11 of TaskAngel is available now on the App Store. Looking Forward We are continuing to improve TaskAngel to meet your needs, because you want more, and we want to give you more. For this to work, we need to know what you want. Your feedback is vital to us. Please keep it coming. Leave a comment on this page, or go to our Contact page. Is your to-do list in a mess? Don’t know where to start? Try the Goal Action System, and get back in control. Best wishes Andrew

Master Your Workday Now Master Your Workday Now (MYN for short) is a task management system developed by productivity guru Michael Linenberger. The MYN system has been part of the standard productivity training at John Deere, Kohl’s department stores, Comcast, and at many other companies. It has been taught and is in use by many at GE, the US Coast Guard, Pfizer, Shell Oil, Microsoft, American Health Care Association, Merrill Lynch, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and in many other companies. TaskAngel is the ideal companion for MYN. You can implement an MYN system in TaskAngel amazingly quickly. This blog post shows you how to do it. Michael’s book, The One Minute To-Do List, shows you how to get control of your workday fast. You should read that first if you aren’t familiar with MYN. This article picks up the story after you have created your first paper task list. But if you have already put your tasks into Toodledo, that’s even better because TaskAngel will download them automatically, so you can get to work right away. How to work with Toodledo is explained later. See also: The Power of Now - How to make the perfect to do list in one minute. TaskAngel Online: A New Recommended MYN App, by Michael Linenberger MYN and TaskAngel TaskAngel runs on iPhone, iPad and Windows Desktop. “TaskAngel fills an important gap in the Toodledo MYN app suite. For people that work primarily on a PC and manage tasks there, TaskAngel is the only Toodledo app that allows you to take your tasks offline (like when on an airplane) and review and edit tasks. The task edits then sync back to the Toodledo servers when you land and reconnect. No other PC app does that.” – Michael Linenberger Getting Your Tasks Into TaskAngel This post shows you how to use TaskAngel on an iPhone or an iPad. The same principles apply to the Windows versions. First, download TaskAngel from the app store in the usual way and install it. The first screen you see is a task list, which is empty until you add some things to do. In-App Purchases TaskAngel for iPhone and iPad is free, but some features require you to buy them. MYN makes extensive use of Start Dates, and this is a purchasable feature. TaskAngel will pop up an alert the first time you try to use it. You can buy it on its own, or all together with the other extras in a Pro bundle. Settings for MYN Before you start tapping in your tasks, go to the Settings page in TaskAngel by tapping the icon at the bottom left. In the View section, set ‘Show future starts’ off. Then in the Sort section, set ‘group tasks by priority descending then sort by start descending then sort by due ascending then sort by none.’ There’s a Defaults section near the bottom of the page. Set Default Priority to Medium and turn the ‘New tasks start today’ switch on. Finally, in the Reminders section, set ‘Always remind when due’ to on. Go back to the task list and tap + to add your first task. Urgency Zones With MYN you sort your tasks into three urgency zones: Critical Now, Opportunity Now, and Over-The-Horizon. As you tap them into TaskAngel, set their priorities as follows: Critical Now – High Priority Opportunity Now – Medium Priority Over-The-Horizon – Low Priority When you have done this, you should see your task list grouped into priorities with High at the top. These are the ones you must do today. Due Dates As you type in a task, you can set a due date for it. But don’t use due dates to schedule your tasks. The urgency zones do that. The Due field is there to record deadlines. These are promises you have made to somebody that you will do a task by the deadline date. They don’t change unless you renegotiate.TaskAngel will remind you when the due date arrives. Start Dates MYN uses the FRESH system of sorting tasks so that those with most recent start dates appear at the top of the list. If you have just typed in a whole load of tasks, they will all have the same start date. You can move things down the list by changing their start dates backward, into the past.Some tasks don’t need your attention for weeks or even months. For example, buying birthday presents. You can hide them until then by giving them start dates in the future. Folders If you have a lot of tasks, it will be easier to manage them if you put them into folders. As you create a new task, tap on the folder property, to pick from your folder list. Initially you only have one folder called Inbox. You create others by tapping Edit on the folder list then ‘New Folder’ at the bottom. Filters Once everything is in TaskAngel, you can filter your tasks by lots of different properties. Tap the filter icon in the top left corner of the task list. ​Choose a property – for example, Start Date. TaskAngel takes you to a list of ranges, with a count of how many tasks are in each range. If you tap ‘Within 3 months’ you will see all the tasks that are to start within the next three months. The start date filter lets you see tasks with future start dates even when the switch in Settings is off. Syncing Keep your tasks safe while you work on them. Sync them with Toodledo. Syncing allows you to keep one to-do list across multiple devices. You can also access them through the web interface at toodledo.com. To set up syncing, go to Settings and choose Toodledo as your sync service. Then to start your first sync, tap the sync icon at the bottom right. TaskAngel pops up a web page in Toodledo that lets you sign in or register as a new user. After you have signed in your first sync starts automatically.TaskAngel syncs with Toodledo every time you make a change. It will also check the site at regular intervals in case you have changed something on the web page or another device. You can adjust this interval in Settings. If you can’t work online – for example on an airplane – TaskAngel continues to work happily. It resumes syncing automatically when your connection is restored. Significant Outcomes MYN is simple but effective. Soon you will have your workload under control. You can start to move beyond fire-fighting to addressing bigger, more important things than just your hectic short-term actions. In MYN, these larger accomplishments are called Significant Outcomes (SOC’s for short). Type them in just is if they were other actions, but make them Top Priority. Because you are grouping by priority, the SOC’s will appear at the top of your to-do list. You can keep an eye on them when you do your daily and weekly task reviews. MYN – Next steps There are many more aspects of MYN and lots of other features of TaskAngel to explore. Together, MYN and TaskAngel will help you master your work day – now! So download TaskAngel from the app store and get started. To download TaskAngel for Windows, go to our download page. To learn more of Michael Linenberger’s solutions and teachings, go to Michael’s web site. Did you find this article useful? Has it helped you? Please leave a comment. Good luck, Andrew

Sort Your Life Out The latest release of TaskAngel for iPhone and iPad can organize your to-do list even more conveniently. To see the new features in action, tap the Settings icon at the bottom left corner of the task list. The new Sort section gives you complete control over how to group and sort your tasks. To list your tasks by folder, choose “Group tasks by folder ascending.” To sort by due date, use “Sort by due date ascending.” If you have lost track of an action you have recently been working on, try “Sort by modified date descending.” You can have one level of grouping and three levels of sorting, all at the same time. For example “Group by priority, then sort by start date, then due date, then when added.” Choose from six properties to group by, and ten properties for sorting at each level. These improvements come on top of the extensive searching and filtering features you know and love, giving you a fantastic range of tools to bring your workload under control. New Defaults There are two more settings, in a new Defaults section. Default Priority can be Low or Medium, and there is a switch for ‘New Tasks Start Today.’ These both apply when you create a new task. Our final design change helps you when working on the text of your notes. Now the toolbar buttons for Bold and Italic change color to indicate the status of the words you are editing. Finally, this release has a couple of bug fixes. Get it now New release 1.8 of TaskAngel for iPhone and iPad is available now from the App Store. Tell Us What You Think Please let us have your feedback. Do you like the new features? What other improvements do you want us to make? Make a comment here, or go to our Contact page. Thanks, Andrew

We are proud to present TaskAngel 3.0 for Windows Desktop. It’s available on our download page. “I have been using your TaskAngel for couple of weeks. I have to say it’s amazing, it’s just the app I have been looking for it for long time.” – Ma Q, China We know you are going to love this update. Here’s why: 1. It looks great We thoroughly reviewed and updated the design of TaskAngel. We gave every screen a complete make-over. We think you’ll love the new fresh look and feel. 2. No more fuzzy text Windows 10 does an excellent job at supporting the latest high-res displays. But sometimes it messes up the fonts, making them look at bit blurry. This version of TaskAngel takes back control and makes the text razor-sharp even on your fancy new laptop. 3. Make all the text bigger In the previous version, you could choose the font used in your task list. Now whenever you change the font, it applies to every screen and every menu. It’s amazing how much clearer everything is when you choose the right text size. 4. It runs on your Windows Tablet If you are using a touch screen, set the font size to 22 points. Then everything is big enough to tap with your fingers. And the screen layouts adjust themselves automatically when you pop up the soft keyboard. 5. More ways to customize the screen layout As well as your task list, the main TaskAngel screen has a filter list and a note panel. Now you can hide them if you want to see more of the task list on your screen. And pop them up again just as quickly. 6. New graphics We’ve updated the buttons, icons, and graphics so you can make sense of the toolbar buttons more immediately. Along with the text improvements, they make using TaskAngel a real pleasure. 7. Task counts The Filter Panel now shows the number of active tasks or notes associated with each filter. Please note that this count is often different from the number of tasks showing on the task list because TaskAngel hides them if they are subtasks of a closed parent. 8. Simplify the task list You can manage your task list using a variety of properties. Not only priority and due date, but also folders, goals, modified date, start date, context and so on. But if you find yourself using too many properties, it gets overwhelming. Now you can click on “Show default columns” to take you back to a much simpler list. 9. Sync with a hotkey TaskAngel syncs automatically with Toodledo, so you can keep your task list secure and share it across lots of devices. Now you can use Ctrl+T to sync whenever you like. You will love it when you are putting your laptop to sleep. 10. Hide future tasks There’s a new option, “Show Future Starts.” You can uncheck it to hide all tasks with their start dates in the future. Remember birthdays without having them clutter up your task list! 11. Make rule-based custom filters We’ve completely redesigned the My Filters feature. Now it’s more logical and easier to understand. You can design filters-based rules like “Starred or Top Priority or (in Health folder and Next Action).” 12. More control of print format Previously when you printed the task list, your print contents matched what was on screen. Now you can choose which columns will be printed in the Task List and the Note List. You can even decide to print columns you aren’t displaying on the screen. Or if your screen is quite crowded, you can slim down your print contents. 13. Continuous improvement We always fix bugs when we find them, and when you find them. This version has lots of fixes and reliability improvements. TaskAngel just keeps on getting better! Some of these changes were inspired by Gretha, who told us how helpful TaskAngel is for the visually impaired. You’re going to love TaskAngel for Windows Desktop. Download it now!​

Most people think they are too busy to manage their time. But the truth is a good time management system can double your productivity – and reduce stress. TaskAngel To-Do List combines power and simplicity in a unique productivity tool, that’s powerful enough to manage complex and critical projects, and yet simple enough to run your shopping list. In this post, you will learn how to take back control – step by step – boosting your productivity and taking the stress away. You can try TaskAngel for free. Get it from the TaskAngel pages for iPhone and iPad and Windows. 1. Productivity essential – make one list If you feel stressed – or even overwhelmed – by your workload, you’re normal because we all have hundreds of things to do. We write them down in all kinds of places – on scraps of paper or post-it notes, or on the fridge door, in letters waiting for action and emails sitting in our inbox, and in our heads and the heads of our kids and other family members and colleagues. The first step in taking back control is to capture all of these things into a single list. You will find TaskAngel To-do List is ideal for this, because you can keep the same list on your iPhone, iPad, and PC, or even your Windows phone, and keep them all in sync. So you can take all the tasks everywhere with you, in your pocket and on your desk. Now your productivity improvement journey can begin. 2. Capture every task Unfinished tasks are like monkeys, riding on your back and fighting each other for your attention. What is worse, more and more jump on every day and at night they swirl around in your brain, keeping you awake. Some tasks are really complicated. For example, perhaps you are organizing a family celebration. It should be fantastic but if it goes wrong everyone will blame you and they all keep changing their minds about what they want! Or maybe you’re a project manager and you have to hit each milestone – in every work-stream – to prevent the project going off track. On the other hand, some tasks are simple but critical. Renewing a passport is easy enough but if you forget to do it on time you won’t be going on that foreign trip. And if you’re a student you are expected to complete your assignments every week and hand them in, or you’ll fall behind and fail your exams. Or maybe you’re a mum who has to remember to send your kid to school with the right ingredients for their cake bake or face their bitter tears! Take a couple of hours and put every one of your tasks into TaskAngel. Offload every monkey that’s on your back – all your unfinished business. Scan your inputs Make sure you flush out every monkey wherever it is hiding. Make sure to go through your inputs systematically step by step: 1. Gather your loose paper into one pile. Letters, scribbled notes or receipts. Then decide what actions must be taken for each one if any and tap them into TaskAngel. Include essential actions only. 2. Glance through your email quickly for action items and copy and paste them into TaskAngel as you go. Again, essential actions only. 3. Go into your social media and capture any essential actions arising from your conversations there. 4. Go through your calendar, look at recent events to capture any actions arising and look at forthcoming events to capture any preparations you need to make. Put them all into TaskAngel. 5. Are there still some tasks roaming free in your brain? Tap each one into TaskAngel to bring it into existence and give it a sharper focus. That will bring your stress levels right down. Wow – that was hard! Now it’s time to take a break. Go for a walk, have a coffee or phone a friend. Now you will already be feeling better because all those monkeys are out in the open and you can control them. But there are far too many of them –  you can’t possibly do all these things so it’s time to start pruning! 3. Prune your list You can’t do everything unless you are superman. So if you’re overloaded you must reduce your workload and do less. Although you might think everything is essential it really isn’t. So go through your list from the top and think about what will happen if you don’t do each task. Who will care? Of course, many tasks really are essential so leave those ones on the list. But wait – are you the only person on earth who can do them? If not, try to delegate. Remember –  a problem shared is a problem halved. What if someone has delegated a task to you, or maybe you have promised to do something for a colleague or friend. If so try to simplify it. Cut to the chase and buy some time. And remember if people are used to you failing to deliver your promises, they may be prepared to renegotiate a new commitment if they are convinced you will deliver this time. Remember productivity is all about concentrating on what really matters and getting it done. 4. Set priorities OK –  so your list is a bit smaller now but there’s still an awful lot on your plate. And whether you have a hundred or a thousand on your list, in truth you can only do one of them at a time. It’s no good if you keep jumping from one to another and get nothing done properly. So you have to make choices. Help yourself by setting consistent priorities. And don’t try telling yourself everything is the top priority – that’s the same as making everything bottom priority. It’s just a recipe for procrastination. In TaskAngel you can set the priorities of each task to Top, High, Medium or Low. And there is a special Negative priority that you give any task that is such low priority you don’t even want to look at it. As a rough guide for best productivity, your task priority profile should be something like 10% top, 25% high, 50% medium and 15% low. Hierarchy of needs We can learn a lot from Abraham Maslow, a psychologist from Brooklyn, New York, born in 1908. His most famous work was published in 1954. Maslow realized our most basic needs are inborn, and they have evolved over tens of thousands of years. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, each need must be satisfied in turn, starting with the most basic needs for survival itself. Here is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: 1. Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc 2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc 3. Belonging and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc 4. Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc 5. Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Maslow believed that these needs must be satisfied in the given order. For example, you can’t expect someone to develop their full potential (level 5) if they are having problems with their marriage (level 3). And they can’t be an effective team member (level 3) if they are suffering from insomnia (level 1). So think about your personal hierarchy of needs and set your task priorities to support them. Mostly, when you are considering time management you are probably thinking about levels 4 and 5. But if you don’t have levels 1-3 in good shape you are building your castles on sand. 5. Break down big tasks When you start your day, you look at the tasks on your list and decide which ones you are going to do that day. But for this to work each task must be a manageable size – something you can bite off and swallow in an hour or two. Of course, many of your tasks are much bigger than this – even something as straightforward as decorating a bedroom might take you three or four days. So to overcome this, TaskAngel lets you break down your big tasks into subtasks. Each parent task can have as many subtasks as you like and you can arrange them in any order. As an example, ‘Decorate Tom’s Bedroom’ can be split into subtasks like: Decide color scheme Buy paint and brushes Remove rubbish Cover furniture Paint walls Each subtask should take around an hour or two because lots of smaller subtasks make your time management work too fiddly and bigger subtasks are too burdensome. 6. Use dates sparingly TaskAngel has a wide variety of filters that make it easy for you to keep an eye on the tasks that are becoming urgent. But don’t be tempted to invent bogus due dates just to force a task to the top of the list, because that will restrict your flexibility and draw your attention away from tasks that are genuinely due or overdue. And don’t routinely set every important task to be due tomorrow. It’s a productivity killer – tomorrow never comes! Of course, you must use dates when necessary. Sometimes they are imposed on you. For example – “Deliver completed the build by 31 March”, or “Renew my passport before it expires on 15 June”. TaskAngel lets you set due dates and start dates for any of your tasks and filter on them. Furthermore, you can optionally set due times and start times for any task. 7. Use reminders When tasks do have due dates, you must remember to do them on time. TaskAngel lets you set reminders for any of your tasks and makes sure you are notified when each reminder is due. Even this feature gives you a lot of control – you can arrange for a reminder to be triggered when the task is due or in intervals of minutes, hours, days or weeks ahead of time. 8. Organize By the time you get this far, your task list will be quite long, and you don’t want to be constantly wading through it, picking your next task out of a list of hundreds of tasks. TaskAngel lets you filter your task list in all kinds of ways, so you can pick from a subset of your task list – maybe only ten or twelve tasks at a time. To start with you can organize your tasks into folders. It makes sense to have different folders for each of your projects. Or use them to group tasks in other ways according to your interests. For example here are some of my folders: Health Blog Fun Home-making Release 1.2 Photography Tax Organize your folders so that each contains up to twenty tasks and if one your folders has more than twenty split it into two or three folders. TaskAngel lets you create as many folders as you like and call them anything you want. When you first install TaskAngel, you just have one folder, called ‘Inbox’. All your new tasks go into Inbox. Put a task into a different folder by editing the task and changing its ‘Folder’ property. It’s easy to list all the tasks in a folder – just tap on the folder in your filter list. Furthermore, while you are working on a folder, any new tasks are automatically put into that folder. 9. Set goals As your task list gets more under control, start to get a bit more proactive. Instead of just dealing with all the work other people throw at you, think about where all this activity is taking you. Is it where you want to go? Better productivity will get you to your goals faster and with less effort. TaskAngel lets you define three levels of goals: Lifetime Long-term Short-term. How you use the levels is up to you. I like to use 3 months for short-term goals, one year for long-term and lifetime goals are beyond a year. You can link goals in a tree structure. Short-term goals can contribute to Long-term ones, and Long-term goals can contribute to Lifetime ones. One of my goals is ‘Get onto Google page 1’, which contributes to ‘Build My Business’. When you tap on a goal, it shows you every task assigned to that goal including any tasks assigned to lower level goals that contribute to it. 10. Assign contexts When picking a task from your list, only some of them can be done right this minute. For example, you can’t decorate Tom’s bedroom while you’re at work. So to avoid being confronted with tasks you can’t do, you can assign ‘contexts’ to them. A context gives you a sense of where you need to be when doing a task. Common contexts might be Work, Home, Shopping, Computer or School. TaskAngel lets you define as many contexts as you want and call them what you like. For example every time one of your projects requires you to go shopping for something, define a task in the project’s folder and assign it the Shopping context. Then when you go shopping, pull out your iPhone, tap on the shopping context and that’s your shopping list, right there! 11. Choose your next action TaskAngel can’t make the decisions – that’s your responsibility. But it can help with your decision making. Take a look at all the tasks in one of your folders, perhaps there are twenty tasks in there. Which ones can you do right now? Maybe not all because some depend on other people doing things, or perhaps they depend on other things you haven’t yet done. If any of the tasks are available for action right now, flag them with ‘Next Action’ status. Then tap on your ‘Next Actions’ filter. TaskAngel gives you a list of every task that can be done right now. Pick one of them and just do it! 12. Keep in sync You can use the same task list across all your devices – iPhone, iPad or Windows PC. This means you can do your task reviews and daily plans while sitting at your PC or iPad and then carry the same list around with you on your iPhone. You have a choice of two synchronization services – Toodledo and iCloud. Firstly, Toodledo is a dedicated task management service that is accessible from a huge range of devices, using a wide variety of apps. For details visit the Toodledo web site. But if you just want to keep your task list synchronized across iPhone and iPad, TaskAngel lets you do it using iCloud. Whatever sync service you pick, TaskAngel keeps your to-do list synchronized seamlessly and automatically. Syncing continues to run when you switch to another app. So your best productivity assistant will be there to help when you need it, wherever you are. Next steps So that’s TaskAngel – a unique time management tool that really will boost your productivity! You can try TaskAngel for free. Get it from the TaskAngel download pages for iPhone and iPad, and Windows. Best wishes, Andrew Boswell MyPocketSoft SaveSave #blog #Productivity #TimeManagement

Don’t you just hate it when you have too much to do and you’re running out of time? I can help you boost your productivity. These time management tips will accelerate your performance, and you can start right now. No matter if you are a student, professional or home-maker, these tips will help you get more done in less time. 1. Measure your time management baseline First of all, look back at yesterday. How much time did you spend doing key tasks? Where did the rest of the day go? How many hours did you spend travelling? Doing your emails? Attending meetings? Taking breaks? Dealing with interruptions? Doing key tasks? Or doing stuff that keeps you busy but is just a chore? Type the information into a table in Excel or Numbers, and draw a pie chart. Look back at the other days in the past week and see how the profile changes. If it seems like less than half your time is going on key tasks, you have room for improvement. The time management tips in this blog post are easy to do and they will make a big difference. Make a more detailed log for the coming days and weeks and try to do better. 2. Set goals We all have lots of goals in our lives. To be healthy, wealthy and wise. We don’t always admit them to others, or even to ourselves! But researchers have found that if you write a goal down, you are much more likely to achieve it. And we are all different. Your goals are different from mine. But there might be some similarities. Here is my list, as an example: Support my family Build my business Be healthy Get 100,000 readers for my blog Have fun every day Some goals are fuzzy and others are specific and measurable. That’s OK. Whatever works for you. It’s what you do with them that matters. Write your goals down and work towards them every day. 3. Make one to-do list Do you have lots of post-it notes with reminders of things to do? An Outlook task list? And an inbox with loads of unanswered emails? Or a pile of paper waiting for attention? What about your voice mail – is it full? If so, you’re normal. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Now it’s time to take control. Make one list. Use it as your time management hub. And this time make it a new list. Don’t just add to a list that’s already out of control. Start by listing what is on your mind. Drain everything out of your brain. Trust it to know what really matters. Then look at your post-it notes and so on. Add them to your list – but only the vital ones. But be honest with yourself. If you’re never going to get around to doing a task, throw it away. To manage your to-do list, use a good app like TaskAngel. It’s a great to-do list organiser and task manager, for iPad, iPhone and Windows. 4. Break up your hard tasks Some tasks are small and easy – like ‘Buy AA batteries’ – and some are much bigger and more complicated – like ‘Organize Fiona’s birthday party’. Some tasks are so big, it’s really hard to get your head around them. When you are faced with a big task, break it down into manageable steps. Or if you can’t see all the way to the end, just write down the first step, to get you started. 5. Face your fears Do you keep putting off an unpleasant task? Some tasks can be really stressful. Maybe you need to complain about a teacher who has treated your child unfairly. Or perhaps you have to correct a team member who has done a poor job. It’s tempting to put things like this off until tomorrow, particularly if you’re busy today. But delay never makes a hard problem easier.  Take a deep breath and do it now. Maybe you’re suffering from procrastination. Have look at the Staircase Technique – it could be the answer to your time management woes. 6. Plan your day Time is your most precious resource. As you start your day, there are 8 hours or more of unused time ahead of you, like untrodden snow. You can do what you like with it. So take a few minutes to think about how best to use it. Review your calendar and your to-do list. Think about your goals. What are today’s key achievements going to be? When I’m doing this, I like to sketch out a quick mind-map, on a blank sheet of paper. Don’t use yesterday’s, even if today’s is quite similar. Learn from it and move on. Stefan James has written some good stuff on time management, including an excellent blog post on how to plan your day for optimal productivity. 7. Review your routine Do you do some things regularly, day after day, or week after week? Can you do them in a better way, or to a better schedule? In my time as a programme director, progress reports were a constant source of frustration. Every week I had to write one for my superiors, and my project managers had to write theirs for me. And in turn, they had to gather the progress data we all needed to keep track. It took time for all this information to filter through, and yet everyone wanted the most up to date status reports. And often senior directors insisted on seeing information in their own special format, which made it even more of a nightmare for everyone. My solution was to draw up a progress reporting calendar and then agree it with all the participants – contributors and reviewers. And I created a simple one-page progress reporting format, that was easy to read at a glance and much less burdensome to put together. 8. Protect your time These days we can all share our calendars – that’s great for efficiency. But it also means everyone can see when you are free. Before you know it they’ve arranged a meeting and invited you to it. Make appointments with yourself. Block out the time you need to do your key tasks. Make them private so nobody can see what you’re up to. (But do still leave some free time so that people who need you can get to you.) Take back control of your time management. 9. Allocate half your time to key tasks When you’re working on something important, the pressure from everything else continues to build. Keep an eye on your schedule, and make sure you are giving at least half your time to your key tasks of the day. Then squeeze all your remaining activities into the other half. Don’t let them run away with the day. 10. Start with something easy When you start a new day’s work, it takes time for your mind to get into its harness. It’s full of other thoughts – the motorist that nearly ran into you, or the latest crisis at home, or last night’s football game. So warm your brain up. Knock off a couple of quick tasks before you get onto a more meaty one. For example, now is a good time to make a couple of calls, or go and chat to a couple of people about how things are going. 11. Schedule interruptions Time management is an art, not a science. No matter how organized you are, unexpected things are bound to happen. And those emails and calls can’t be ignored forever. So take account of them in your daily plan. This means the time you need for your key tasks will take longer than you think because you’ll need lots of white space in your day. 12. Take breaks Your brain is an athlete. It can’t keep running at top speed forever. After delivering at peak performance for an hour it starts to flag. You start to lose concentration. Take a short break to recharge your batteries. When you need to concentrate for an extended period,  try the Pomodoro Technique. This famous time management method uses the tomato timer from your kitchen to force yourself to take a break. It’s simple but effective, particularly if you’re writing a blog post 😏 13. Allow time for learning You will work smarter if you know what you are doing, and you’ll waste less time on correcting mistakes. We all know this, but it’s not so easy to find time for learning. The UK government surveyed 91,000 employers and found that 48% of their people lacked specialist skills or knowledge, and 59% needed to improve their time management capabilities. Everyone learns on the job, but you need dedicated learning time too. Try to set aside at least half a day per month to learn something new. 14. Set priorities You can’t do everything on your to-do list. So set priorities to decide how important your tasks are, to you and the people who are waiting for you to complete them. Time management is about making choices – what to do, and what not to do. You exercise these choices when you make your daily plan. It’s your decision – what am I going to do today? What about the things you aren’t going to do. Will you ever do them? If not, kill them now. Don’t get too complicated when setting priorities. You are just trying to make a decision. I just use High, Medium and Low, and try to put a third in each. Beware of priority inflation. If everything gets set to high priority, it’s the same as if everything was a low priority. As a result, nothing gets done. Benjamin at Process Street has some good advice on how to prioritize tasks. 15. Don’t multitask You can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Your stream of consciousness is a bit like a TV channel. Hopping from one channel to the next is inefficient and disruptive. Yes, you can walk and chew gum, but you can’t play the violin and beat a drum at the same time. And don’t sit in a meeting doing your emails. Lots of people do it, but you can’t be present in both places at the same time. Close down your laptop, or step out of the meeting. 16. Turn off unwanted emails Emails can waste a lot of time. They can kill your time management efforts stone dead. When you receive emails you don’t want, turn them off at the source. If you are repeatedly receiving unwanted emails from the same source, add them to your Spam filter if you have one. Perhaps they have an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email – if so, use that. (But beware of spammers who exploit ‘unsubscribe’ to get you onto their website.) Some email sources have messages you want to see and others you might not. For example, Amazon sends you a receipt if you buy something, but they also send you lots of marketing stuff you might not want. I contacted their help desk and got them to unsubscribe me from all their marketing emails. They still send me the emails I do want to see, like receipts and information about my orders. All good email providers can block unwanted emails automatically for you. Here’s a good article on how to block unwanted emails on Gmail 17. Empty your inbox If you get behind on your emails, you are giving yourself less time to do any actions that come from them. Discipline yourself to get your inbox to zero every day. Inbox is for new email you haven’t read yet. When you have read an email, move it out of your inbox. Otherwise, you will find yourself reading the same emails over and over again. That’s not good! Sort your emails by received date & time, with the most recent ones at the top. Then even if you have a huge backlog in your inbox, you will still see the most recent – possibly the most urgent – ones first. Most emails have a limited shelf life, therefore as you move backwards in time, less and less of them are relevant. After you have gone back a few weeks, most people will have given up on you, so you might as well move all old emails to Archive or delete them. 18. Don’t look at emails while you are working Don’t be an email addict! While you are concentrating, put your emails away. Some people seem to spend every spare minute doing their emails. That’s no way to live. Allocate some time for looking at your inbox. Maybe allow yourself 30 minutes at the beginning of the day, 15 minutes after lunch, and 30 minutes at the end of the day. Then go through your emails as quickly as you can, remembering that most email is trash. But beware – just occasionally something vital will arrive. Concentrate, or you’ll miss it! 19. Turn your phone to silent Don’t let people break your concentration while you are working on a key task. Turn your phone off, and put a sticker on your phone to remind you to turn it back on again. Or silence it automatically using an app like AutoSilent for iPhone. 20. Use alarms When your phone isn’t on silent, use its alarm. It’s a perfect tool for reminding you to do things on time. Voice recognition turns my phone into a time management assistant. I can say “Hey Siri, set an alarm for 11 o’clock”, or “Hey Siri, wake me up in half an hour”, and it does it! But I have to say “Hey Siri”, otherwise my boss thinks I’m talking to her and tells me to get back to work.😒 21. Decline all unwanted meetings Meetings can really get in the way of your time management efforts. Don’t attend any meetings that aren’t absolutely essential. If someone invites you to a meeting, your first instinct should be to question it. What’s its purpose? Does it have an agenda? What happens if I don’t attend it? Who cares? If it’s a long meeting, see if you can get away with attending just part of it. Or even better, phone in. 22. Leave gaps between meetings Back-to-back meetings are the worst of all. You need space to think. Deal with the outcome of one meeting before you plunge into the next. As soon as a meeting is over, review any actions on you and add them to your to-do list, or do them right away if they are quick. And before you go to the next meeting, think about its purpose, and your inputs, and the outcomes you want. Then take time to prepare yourself, and make sure you have everything you need before you go in. 23. Arrive at meetings on time Waiting for people to arrive late for a meeting wastes everyone’s time. It soon becomes a habit for everybody. I’ve worked in companies where it almost seems to be considered rude to turn up on time to a meeting! It’s as if you turned up early for a party, and surprised the hosts still hoovering. If you are running a meeting, always start it on time and end it on time, no matter who is late. Show some time management leadership. But get sufficient allies to turn up on time with you. It’s hard to start a meeting on your own! 24. Use remote meeting tools If you can’t avoid a meeting, call in by phone. That will minimize your lost time and help with meeting discipline. I can remember the time when big companies used to spend a fortune on elaborate video conferencing suites. Nowadays most just use telephone conferencing systems. Personally I find Skype works just as well as anything. Have a look at this excellent review of the best video conferencing software of 2016, from PC Mag. 25. Avoid travelling It’s easy to get into the habit of repetitive travelling, when your company has more than one site, or when you keep having to drive to see a client or supplier. Think about who you need to see face to face most often. Can you relocate yourself to be near them? And deal with less frequent contacts over the phone? When you need to talk to someone nearby, go to see them. When you need to see someone far away, call them. Or get them to come to you. 26. Work from home Commuting is the most wasteful form of travelling. According to a report by the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 128 million Americans are commuting every day, and 3 million of them drive at least 50 miles each way. Three quarters drive alone. If your work pattern permits, working from home can save you hours of travelling every day, and it will do wonders for your concentration. 27. Work remotely When you must go into work, try to make it a short journey. If your company works across several sites, use the site closest to your home. Maybe one of your clients or suppliers has a convenient site – they might be delighted to lend you a desk. When I ran the Westminster Wireless City Project, I often worked from a park bench near Buckingham Palace, when the weather was fine. On cold and wet days, I used Starbucks. 28. Organize your workspace Make sure the things you need most often are always to hand. These days we don’t need as much as we used to. In my last assignment as a programme director, I was able to bring in my iPad and use it on the corporate network (subject to security policies and tools). This meant I didn’t need to bring my laptop. And I didn’t need a briefcase. Just a little man-bag. And I didn’t need a desk! For many people, their desk is just somewhere to park their laptop while they do their emails. And of course, finding a free desk can be a real pain. So I gave mine up and took to management by wandering around. And management by sharing coffee. And in every meeting, I had everything I needed with me. 29. Get rid of paper clutter Piles of paper on your desk may contain all your key information, but you spend too much time hunting through it. Throw away what you don’t need, and scan the rest. Use the TRAF system – Trash, Refer, Action, File. Trash is anything you can toss away now. Refer is anything you need to pass on to someone else. Action is something you must act on. File is something you need to keep. Pick up your pieces of paper one handful at a time, and deal them into four piles for Trash, Refer, Action and File. Do it quickly, as if you were the dealer in a card game. Throw away Trash and pass on Refer. Add actions to your to-do list and put them onto the File pile. Then file them into folders or box files, or even better scan them and trash the paper. If your box files are getting over-full, pick one of them each week, and TRAF it. 30. Measure how much your time management has improved Did you find these time management tips useful? You don’t have to all of them at once.  Maybe try one of them each week, and see if you can build permanent efficiencies into your life. Every one of these tips will help you get more done in less time. Go back to tip 1 and measure how much you’ve improved. And tell your friends! What next? Take a look at the WorkWise web site. It’s a great guide to smarter ways of working. To manage your to-do list, use TaskAngel. It’s the best to-do list organiser and task manager. Get it for free at taskangel.com. Finally, download our magnificent infographic, illustrating all 30 ways to get more done in less time. Feedback Did you find this blog post useful? Do you have anything to add? If so, please leave a comment. Disclaimer I am the owner and author of TaskAngel. I have no interest in or relationship with any other products or services mentioned in this blog, although my posts are sometimes featured by WorkWise. SaveSave #blog #TimeManagement

Do you see piles of paper everywhere? On your desk, beside your bed, on the kitchen table? Are you thinking about buying a bigger bag? I can help you. It’s time to fight back. Grab a couple of hours, right away. It might be a pain, but at the end of it, you’ll feel a lot better. Step 1: Gather loose paper Find a big, empty table to work on. Gather all your loose paper. Letters, memos, reports, receipts, bills, whatever. Not only the piles you can see around you, but also look in your purse or wallet, and in your briefcase or laptop bag. Don’t forget post-it notes stuck on the walls or on your computer screen. Put them all in one huge pile. Then away we go… Step 2: TRAF TRAF stands for Trash, Refer, Action, File. Trash is anything you can toss away now. Refer is anything you need to pass on to someone else. Action is something you must do personally. File is something you just need to keep. Pick up your pieces of paper one handful at a time, and deal them into four piles – Trash, Refer, Action and File. Do it quickly, as if you were the dealer in a card game. Stand up if you like. Don’t read everything in detail. Just glance at it and rapidly assess what pile it belongs in. If you make a mistake, you can correct it later. If a piece of paper is in an envelope, you might be able to see it’s trash without even opening it. When you do take a document out of its envelope, put the envelope on the trash pile right away. Don’t put it back in the envelope. Keep going until you have consumed your pile of loose paper. Feels good already! Step 3: Trash If you’re lucky, Trash will be your biggest pile. That’s good because trash takes the least time to deal with. But it does still need a little bit of effort. Split your Trash pile again, into Confidential and Recycle. Put the recycle pile into the recycle bin. If you’re at work, put the confidential stuff into the confidential waste bin, or shred it. If you’re at home, shred it. If you don’t have a shredder, get one. Now your trash pile is gone. But spare a thought for your postman. He spends his life bringing this garbage to your door and putting it into your mailbox or pushing it through your letterbox. Then you just hurl it into the trash with a curse. Can you do anything to stop the flow of trash? Look at repeat offenders and see if they can be convinced to stop sending it. Add a task to your to-do list. But don’t keep the paper! Throw it away anyway. Step 4: Refer These are things you will pass to someone else. For me, it’s always the smallest pile, because I don’t have anyone to dump on these days. But if you do have someone, and they are in the same building, stick a post-it note on the front saying what you want them to do, and send it on its way. If you are passing it onto someone who is somewhere else, you are going to have to send it over to them, and that means scanning the paper so they can see what they are working on. There’s a section later in this post about scanning. Step 5: Action These are the things you are going to have to work on yourself. But you aren’t going to leave them all in an action pile. It will rapidly become a forgotten-actions pile. You are going to get rid of that paper. Look at the top piece of paper on your action pile. It got there because there is something in it that needs you to perform a task. Maybe more than one thing. Maybe it’s a simple task you can do right away, like answering a question or putting an appointment in your calendar. In which case, do it now, then trash or file it. If the task needs more work, add it to your to-do list. Then scan the document, or at least the bits of it that you need to refer to again. The paper itself can go into the trash. Is your to-do list in a mess too? If so, you are not alone! Have a look at my blog post for more help on how to get it under control. And try TaskAngel, one of the best to-do list organisers and task managers. Receipts for items you have bought for yourself are useful to keep if they are for large amounts and are required for guarantee claims. In which case, they should be in your File pile. Receipts for company expenditure will need to be channelled into expense claims. To avoid them cluttering up your to-do list, consider using a service like Expensify. This scans your receipts and gathers them into expense reports for you to submit to your boss. Magic! Step 6: File Nearly done now. Just the filing. If you’re an old-timer like me, you spent much of your working life filing paperwork into folders or box files. Or maybe an admin person did it for you, and you just scribbled on the front where it should go. But most of the paper that went into the files never came out again. The files just got more and more full. And you could never find anything in them because you’d forgotten which file you put the damn thing in! Who can forget John Cleese and his secretary who filed everything under M (for Miscellaneous)? So once again, the way forward is to scan it and bin it. But wait! Stop and think before you do that. Isn’t the information already available online somewhere? If so, this piece of paper is really trash. You just need to save a link to the online version and toss the paper. What about magazines and newsletters? Rapidly look through them now for anything interesting, then tear that page out and scan it for action or filing. A word about scanning In the old days we used scanners, and fax machines before that. But now we have smartphones or tablets that will do the job for us quickly and easily. I have an iPhone and an iPad, with a huge variety of scanning apps. If I search for ‘scan’ in App Annie’s keyword explorer, I get a list of over 2000 apps competing for my attention. You may already have your own favourite. Or have a look at Sweet Setup for some excellent advice. My current favourite scanning app is Scanner Pro. It’s very easy to use and it has lots of options for uploading my scans to iCloud, Dropbox, Google, OneDrive, Evernote or whatever. Organising your scans As soon as you’ve scanned your papers, you are going to throw them away. So you have got to be sure that the scans are going to be stored safely and securely, and you must be able to get at them conveniently when you need them. To achieve this, they need to be stored online. If they are work-related, your employer probably has a policy governing the use of online services. So you will have to comply with that. For your personal documents, you have a lot more freedom. Apple, Microsoft and Google all have excellent cloud drives that are great for storing scanned documents. And Dropbox has the additional advantage of not being tied to the Big Three. Step 7: Reward yourself Did you make it? Has all the paper gone? Will you need to spend a bit more time tomorrow to finish off? Anyway, it’s time to give yourself a treat. Anything will do, as long as it isn’t illegal, immoral or fattening 😉 But wait, who’s that at the door? Oh no – it’s the postman… Andrew Boswell September 2016 Feedback Did you find this blog post useful? Do you have anything to add? If so, please leave a comment. And please share it with your friends. To manage the actions arising from your paperwork, use a good todo list manager like TaskAngel. You can try it for free at taskangel.com. SaveSave #blog #clutter #paper