Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Fact vs. Ambition
Yesterday, I was with a client who was trying to get a grip on her very big and busy life. In addition to her Google calendar, she had several notebooks with multiple to-do lists, plus a big, paper week-at-a-glance calendar. She had tried using a five-tab notebook to separate the lists regarding her son’s college search, the details about her home renovation and other projects, but she found it cumbersome and hard to keep it straight.
I suggested that she narrow it down to two lists: one for everything to do with the house, which is a lot, and one for everything else. Instead of using a tabbed notebook, I proposed just picking a spot about a third of the way into a notebook, and using a Post-it to mark the page where her “house” list started. Sometimes it is better to be flexible, and this seemed like simple but effective system.
I understood why she kept the paper calendar: It was mainly a record of workers and small projects that were scheduled relating to her renovation, but that didn’t warrant being put on her shared Google calendar for the family: the plumber to fix the washing machine, the electrician upgrading the fuse box. The calendar let her keep track of these things without crowding her already full digital calendar. And after the renovation was complete, she could file calendar away with any important documents regarding the project as a reference while her to-do lists get thrown out as she completes them.
As we were merging her lists, we came across some items that she had jotted on the paper calendar. Though they were things she wanted to schedule, they didn’t belong there.
Why? A to-do list is where you put the stuff you need to do: calls, appointments you need to schedule, any actions you need to take. Your calendar is where you put what is happening: It’s an agenda to follow as well as a record to refer to. Or, to put it more simply, the calendar is fact, the to-do list is ambition. It’s good to have both, but you don’t want to confuse them.