If you are a to-do list person, or a person drowning in to-do lists … this one’s for you! 

Earlier this year I was recommended David Allen’s Getting Things Done – which I read immediately as it promised I’d learn the art of ‘stress-free productivity’. I’ll admit that I haven’t committed to devoutly following the methodology (yet), but it did give me some productivity gems that have helped me feel so much more in control of my time and spending it wisely. One of those gems is ‘context-based lists’. 

With a seemingly never-ending to-do list, I often used to waste a lot of time just deciding which task to complete. This is a really frustrating way to spend time, especially if the time window you have available is pretty short. Part of Allen’s methodology is that by maintaining context-based lists, you always have an appropriate task immediately at hand for situations that you often find yourself in. In practice, I’ve found it really works! 

Your context-based lists will be personal to you; but Allen’s examples included lists based on location, such as: 

• At computer 
• Travelling 

In these examples, on a long train journey, Allen would be able to look at his ‘Travelling’ list and immediately be able to pick out a task he could complete during the journey, such as; “Call the dentist to book my next checkup.”

These specific examples didn’t work for me; being a home-based worker, I’m rarely in different geographical locations or travelling. My task-doing depends a lot on the time windows I have available; “Only an hour until nursery pickup”, or; “my meeting finished 15 minutes early!” Clearly there are very different tasks that can be completed during those time windows, and having all tasks listed in the same place meant I’d waste my precious available time rooting through the list to find a task of an appropriate length. 

Now I use Trello (why I ruddy love Trello is another blog post entirely) to sort my tasks into appropriate time-bound lists. I have lists for:

• 5 minute tasks
• Less than half an hour tasks 
• Between 30 minutes and an hour tasks 
• Over an hour tasks 

As new tasks come to light, I try to quickly establish how long they will take me and add them directly to the most appropriate list. It’s not an exact science, but I’m getting there! 

The result is that now, if a meeting does end 15 minutes early, I can quickly go and action a couple of things in my ‘5 minute tasks’ list, without wasting those valuable minutes looking for a 5 minute task to do. It’s been an absolute game-changer for me to maximise how I use my time. 

Why not try thinking of a context-based list that would suit your situation? You could start with just one and see where it takes you. I’m never going back to just one list.