Tracking Your List of To-Dos

Guest blogger,  Anne Forbes

From Lists to Circles

I am a list-maker. I especially excel when it comes to To-Do lists in a variety of forms. Lately, I’ve found that my linear lists are not serving me well. They need to be re-done every week or so, they aren’t flexible, they get messy, and they get buried under the current project on my desk.

I am also a Wheel-keeper. That means that I track the seasons and cycles of my life in tune with the natural world, using circular templates that I created called the Wheels of Time and Place, and I teach others to join me in the rewards of this practice. Recently, during an Office Spa Day with Jen, I experienced breakthrough:

Get those to-dos onto a circle!

A Wheel of To-Do’s for a Year

My inspiration for this idea comes from Marian, who has been keeping circular Wheel of the Year journals with me for a number of years. One of her innovations is to use her Wheel to create and track her To-Do list through the seasons. In her own words,

“I use a Wheel of the Year to track what’s happening with the sun, moon, and planets, as well as projects I would like to accomplish throughout the year. I write down each task on a sticky note, in a specific color for different categories. I move the sticky notes around as needed to adjust the timing. I remove a sticky note when I’ve accomplished a project, so by the end of the year there are only a few left. So instead of filling up, it’s like an emptying out, which is a very satisfying feeling!”

To-Do Lists for Shorter Time Frames

My self-appointed task during the Office Spa Day was to take my current linear to-do list and transfer it to a Wheel, which I post on the wall behind my desk. I found that looking at a whole year at once was too much, so I set it up for three months, leading up to the Summer Solstice.

I divided my To-Do Wheel into four categories, sized by their relative importance to me:

1. Creative-Growing Edges, the largest category
2. Current Teaching and Outreach
3. Business (marketing, ecommerce, book-keeping, etc.)
4. Stuff, the smallest and most miscellaneous category

By the end of Office Spa time, I had all of my items off of the linear list, onto sticky notes, and onto the Wheel. It was an amazing feeling! I selected an image for the center that reminds me to abide in a feeling of equanimity.

At the end of each day, I remove the tasks that I have completed and move tasks for the next day into the center of the Wheel. This is also a time that I often divide a large task into smaller ones.

To be sure that I am looking ahead, I add longer range plans as placeholders in their appropriate category. This helps me keep them in mind while streamlining the workflow before me in the moment.

The result – more joy in my work, more focus, and a feeling of integration – just what circles are best at doing!

Wise woman Anne Forbes failed her first attempt at retirement and instead created the Wheels of Time and Place, an attractive toolkit and set of practices for connecting to the natural world every day. The toolkit holds a set of circular journals that individuals, groups, or classrooms use as nature journals, storytelling journals, spiritual journals, or a combination. You can read more about her and her work at www.partnersinplace.com.