Productivity Tip: Write Down Tasks For Later

Near the end of the book Addiction, Procrastination and Laziness by Roman Gelperin, it offers advice to prevent forgetting tasks.

When you think of a task to do, but don't have the proper frame of mind to do it, you should write the task down to remember later when you are in the proper frame of mind. The book suggests writing it somewhere prominent so you will be more likely to see it. Thus, a whiteboard makes an excellent medium.

The book also points out that if you leave the task up for long enough, it becomes "part of the scenery" and you begin to ignore it when you see it. Thus, you should only use this method for one-time tasks, and either cross it out or erase it when you finish the task.

What follows are conclusions I made myself.

A question came to me after reading this: what about longer/larger tasks? The answer is simple: break that task into smaller tasks, and write the next step on the board. Then you complete the task like the other tasks, and you can put the next step up afterward.

If tasks get stale on the board, you need to give it attention: either do the task, re-write the task to make it a bit more fresh, or decide not to do the task.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon. The audio book is what I have been listening to. The narration is dry, but not totally robotic. I have found it to be very, very informative in the mechanisms of procrastination.

https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Procrastination-Laziness-Psychology-Motivation/dp/B0793JMRZT/

Also, I have a small whiteboard for my desk. It costs $5 at Office Depot, here's a link:

https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/892006/Office-Depot-Brand-Mini-Magnetic-Dry/

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