The Power Of Habit Put To The Test

Welcome back!

This week marks the end of a 3rd month of my experiment with to-do lists optimization. I can definitely call it a success, not so much for the difference it made in my approach to organizing daily tasks, but more for the eye-opening effect it had on me. Over the course of three months I’ve been slowly progressing from one level of understanding the process to another, and it seems incredible that it’s already been 3 months, cause it feels more like 3 weeks.

A few days ago I’ve decided to continue my organizing process improvement, and that’s how I decided to find a software which would help me make such a progress. So from this week on, I think I’ll be posting quick reviews on the various software packages and websites I’ve tried using for various stages of my daily organizing, so hopefully my experience will help you see which things will suit you and which will definitely not.

Being a reader of LifeHack, it was fairly soon that I came across a brilliant list of gtd software on Listible, and that’s the list I’m using to find new ways to improve my productivity.

I’ve been using a 45-day trial version of MyLife Organized product for the past few days, and I’ll be definitely writing a review for this software shortly, but for now I just wanted to concentrate on the power of one of my habits put to the test.

3 months of improved organization made some irreversible changes to my lifestyle, and most noticeable ones are these:

• Improved productivity
  I’ve definitely improved my productivity – tracking all the things I have to do, be it any organizing system at all, helps you be conscious and fully aware of much more activity of yours. You can’t possibly keep all things in your mind, it’s just a waste of your precious thinking time, so by making a decision to write things down you effectively boost your productivity level up by simply making sure you’re staying focused
• Being confident and comfortable
  It’s very hard to explain the relaxed feeling of being confident about every little thing you should be doing at any moment of your day, and to also feel really comfortable at times when you’re not doing any of a listed task. Simply because you know you’ve accounted for everything, you stop worrying so much about things you’ve possibly forgotten to write down or do. You realize that it takes only few seconds to jot the note in your organizer, and you trust with a confidence that once your task is in organizer, you’ll inevitably come back to it and make sure the task is completed in a timely manner
• Less things to remember and worry about
  By making sure you take notes about every little thing which is likely to need your time and attention in future, you’re offloading the task of remembering this action. You write it down, and you forget about it until it’s time to look into your organizer again and process this action. Give it some time – few weeks at least, to work out this habit of writing everything down and then forgetting about it. This was one of the best advices I’ve got from reading the Getting Things Done book by David Allen.

So the last few days felt really weird because I didn’t feel the impact of my transformation at all. All I’ve changed in my process was the storage system. But since I already have the habit of trusting this system and never worrying about things once I know they’re in the storage system, I didn’t have to reinvent anything or get used to any new habits. It’s fascinating how easy it was for me to simply give up my 5-section A4 organizing tool and switch to using the software.

So that’s the power of my organizing habit put to the test. And although I don’t want to call it a successful test until it’s at least a few weeks time from now, I’m already fairly confident that the habit of having some storage system for my daily tasks is strong enough.

Related Articles:

• Performance or Balance: What's More Important?
• Having To-Do Lists Is Just Not Enough
• 5 Steps of My To-Do Lists Revolution