MOBILE SERIES - Easy To Do Lists

Lately I have been relying more on my mobile phone and less on my computer. Like many people I spend less and less time at my desk, and more time travelling, en route and attending appointments. To keep organized I am leaning more on my mobile phone to keep up on e-mail, manage to do and task lists, review documents and keep up with the news. In the process I have learned that I am willing to sacrifice bells and whistle's for convenience and formatting for speed. This post is the first in what I hope will be a helpful series of tips on using your mobile phone to get organized.

There are lots of ways to manage to do lists. Several programs and notepads are available to help keep a daily to do list organized, but the simplest and most effective method I have found is by using e-mail on my Blackberry. I simply write a draft e-mail to myself of all the items I wish to accomplish that day. Through out the day I can edit the e-mail and place an X next to items that have been completed. I believe this simple method of organizing to do items works for me because I am already heavily relying on my Blackberry for e-mail, so every time I check my e-mail I see my self addressed e-mail titled "To Do List". When I am finished responding to e-mail on the go, I then review the list and check off completed items.

At the end of the day I copy the items that remain to be completed and paste them into a new draft e-mail for tomorrow. Then I send todays list to myself so that I have a record of each days to do list in both my inbox and sent folders. I usually just delete the one in my inbox and use the item in my sent folder for archiving.

The trick is getting into a routine. But I find that the more I rely on my mobile, the more I successfully manage my to do lists using e-mail.

I also should mention that I use a 4 level action system to manage responsibilities. Each time I am presented with a task I first determine if it can and should be accomplished right away. If so, I simply accomplish the item without recording it anywhere. If the item can and should be accomplished that day I enter it into my draft to do e-mail. If it can not be accomplished that day, but is a simple task, I enter it into my task list. Task lists will be my next post. And finally, if an item doesn't belong in the first 3 categories, then it must be a project...and goes into the project list.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T