Calendar > Todolist

Sent on August 24th, 2021

Hi, I’m Aravind Balla and you are reading letter #18 from the Hackletter where I talk about my learnings and give you behind the scenes of things I keep doing for fun.

I told you that there will be no Hackletter this week and I'd be on a trek. Both of them didn't happen. I had to cancel my trek in the last minute because of few emergencies.

Now on to this week's letter...

Calendar > Todolists

I say this because calendars let you decide when you want to do that particular task, right when you enter it into your system.

Todo lists are great for a brain dump, meaning – getting all the tasks out of your head into a list that can be managed later. And that later never comes. You will feel less overwhelmed after getting the tasks out. Or more? Because now you have a huge list.

This doesn't make sure the task gets done. I know the apps these days allow you to schedule and add due dates to the tasks. But then it misses the context of how your day is, what meetings you have and at what times you are free.

Calendars solve this exact problem. You can schedule when you want to actually strike that task off, and follow it when the time comes. All your meetings are in it already. Schedule time blocks and tell yourself you'll not get distracted during that time block. Do it.

But, what about tasks that are not scheduled and I want to do them some day when I feel like?

Todo lists. Yeah. Calendars are for things you want to get done.

My todo lists have only grown in size over the years. A lot of the tasks aren't relavant any more. This happened because I never went back to them and reviewed or scheduled or archived. Review is a crucial part of any system that you want to stick to for longer.

The best way, one that works for me, is to use both todo list and a calendar. Every week, I sort out the tasks I want to complete. I schedule few rough time blocks in the calendar for my week. And every morning after I write my morning pages, I schedule my day with things I want to get done.

Extra Resources

This is a video from Francesco, host of Keep Productive, explaining how he uses Todoist along side Google Calendar.

What do you think of this rant? Do you use a todo list at all? Let me know by replying and let us improve our systems.

See you next Tuesday 👋

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