Terrific Tuesday Taming the To Do List

Terrific Tuesday - it is terrific to be able to use technology to take control of the to do list.

We all have things to do. We have projects at home, work and school. We must remember things to do for oursleves. our spouses, our childen, our work mates and our friends.  Everyone has a different way of doing things. My husband for example has a pen and a bunch of little yellow legal pads. He writes everything down on one of his little pads and everyone in the house has been trained to stay away from them. I have a girl friend who has a beautiful paper day planner that she carries around and uses to plan her life. I am a gadget-aholic and like to use my technology. I also  break gadgets like you would not believe, so I have built some redundancy into my routine. I currently am using my Kindle Fire to manage my life.




                              

I keep my calendar on line with the Google Calendar application. This works for me because it syncs to many other commercial calendar programs. I carry my Kindle Fire with me in my purse everywhere I go.  I don't use it to read ( I have the Kinxle 3G for that) I use it as a kind of PDA on steroids. On the Fire, I currently have two calendar programs, Cozi Family Organizer and Calengoo. Both these programs sync with my Google online calendar. So anything I out into one will be on all three. 


I like the Cozi program because it automatically sends a report of the calendar for the week to my husband and teenie bopper each Sunday. This helps them coordinate their schedules with the rest of the family. It also is color coded so I know by color what family member has something going on. Cozi also has a built in journal for the family. One feature the teenie bopper likes is that she can go online and add items to the grocery list for when I go shopping. Cozi also has a recipe section and can add items to your grocery list.

 www,cozi.com

The Calengoo calendar is a calendar designed sync with the Google online calendar and it works wonderfully. Unlike Cozi, with Calengoo you can change appointments made on the Google calendar. Since all three of the calendars sync with one another, I mainly use Calengoo and let Cozi work in the background to give my family information. I keep both Cozi and Calengoo on my Fire so that if one program crashes or goes crazy, my back up is already in place. All these programs also work on a smart pjone or Android phone.

www.calengoo.com

So, now that I have the electronic planner, what do I do with it? First, I put all my appointments and to do tasks in the planner. This means if I want to plan a party six months from now, I put it in the calendar now while I am thinking about it. I need to go school shopping for my four children in the middle of August. I thought that in April, so I scheduled it in April.  I have post ideas I would like to write in my blog, so they go in the Calendar. I like to keep track of all kinds of information so I keep those notes in the calendar as well. It is easy to move appointments and to do items with an electronic calendar and still keep the calendar neat and easy to use.

The important thing to remember with techmological to do  list management is the same thing you need to remember with the old pen and paper method. You must look at the list at the beginning and end of each day to see what has been done and what must  be amended, moved or cancelled altogether. You must also keep the calendar, to do list, and notes complete and up to date so you can safely rely upon the record keeping method you are using.  The technolgy of eletronic management with internet sync is great because you don't have to go crazy or be unproductive if you lose your list.

So the question for you this terrific Tuesday is, how can you use your technology to manage your to do list more efficiently?