{"id":4164,"date":"2018-03-13T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T19:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/?p=4164"},"modified":"2018-06-22T07:30:24","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T14:30:24","slug":"personal-to-dos-in-work-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/personal-to-dos-in-work-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal To-Dos in Work List?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mar 13, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of people ask me \u201cshould I put personal items along with my work items on my single MYN\/1MTD task list<\/a>, or should I separate them into two lists\u201d?<\/p>\n

It Depends, but Yes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an individual decision, but I generally do<\/em><\/strong> encourage mixing business and personal items on the same list, to a degree. It\u2019s often the only way to accomplish things. For example, many personal calls can and must be made during the day at work because the office hours of those you are calling stops at 5:00, like a dentist office, a car shop, and so on.<\/p>\n

Also, critical personal items that come up on short notice should go into your Critical Now list for today even at work. For example, your babysitter for tonight cancels at noon and you need to find another.<\/p>\n

Similarly, you might want to think ahead about your ride home from work to do some errands. Listing those commute-back errands on your main list helps you prep for that. So yes, seeing some of those along with your other important work items helps you get them done.<\/p>\n

What About a Separate List?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might think why not just put those on a separate \u201cpersonal\u201d list? Isn\u2019t your work list what you should work on while at work, shouldn\u2019t you make that a priority?<\/p>\n

Well, the urgency zones<\/a> in the MYN and 1MTD systems take care of priority. If most work things on your list are more important than the personal ones, you\u2019ll raise those to the top. But if attending to a personal item during the day becomes more critical than other work items, it deserves to be at the top of your critical list.<\/p>\n

Also, unless you have a large number of personal items to do from work every day<\/em>, you won\u2019t look at a separate personal list throughout the workday\u2014and you\u2019ll miss those items that need attention during the day. It\u2019s always better to have one<\/em> list to refer to throughout the day.<\/p>\n

Separate Weekend Chores<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key when doing this, though, is to not overload the workday list with all<\/em> your personal items, especially weekend chore items and the like\u2014things you don\u2019t need to think about during the workday. Those, yes, keep separate and refer to them on Saturday morning. I use OneNote to list and plan out weekend projects and similar. But if you need to stop at Home Depot for a home project item on your way home from work, move just that item to your main daily list, not the whole project plan. So, only put things on the workday list that you might need to do<\/em> or plan<\/em> from the perch of your workday.<\/p>\n

A Home-Based Business is Different<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, if you own your own home-based business, and that\u2019s your main work activity and location, and so during the day you constantly intermingle home and business activities, then absolutely, list everything<\/em> in your single list: all<\/em> personal<\/em> and work<\/em> items. There\u2019s no reason not to mix the whole list if you consistently mix the time spent on them. Just prioritize them right using the urgency zones and their relative positions within those zones.<\/p>\n

Keep to Limits<\/strong><\/p>\n

But there are limits because MYN and 1MTD users have numerical maximums for the top two urgency zones: five items max in the Critical Now section and 20 items max in the opportunity now section. You should stick with those limits. I talk about ways to keep your to-do list short here<\/a> and here<\/a>, but one way applicable to personal items is to combine multiple entries that are done together into a single<\/em> task entry. For example, you wouldn\u2019t want to put all the individual items of your grocery list onto your MYN or 1MTD task list, doing that would overwhelm the list and not be helpful. Rather, I would put one item in the list that says Go Grocery Shopping After Work. Then put the individual grocery shopping items in the notes<\/em> section of that task. Perhaps you can see that notes section in the store in a mobile task app. If not, then transfer or print it to a paper grocery list that you can carry into the store.<\/p>\n

OneNote as a Shopping List Tool<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, for shopping lists, the best solution is to use OneNote\u2014OneNote is fantastic for such lists. I use it daily on my iPhone and it works great. It\u2019s easy to add to through the day as you think of things, and it\u2019s easy to take it with you to the store where you can check off items in the store as you put them in the cart. Best of all it\u2019s easy to restudy previously checked-off items from your previous trips to see if you need to restock them. So you\u2019ll still have an entry on your work list that says Go Grocery Shopping After Work but you\u2019ll use OneNote to list the actual items. I have a new video on how to use OneNote for shopping lists here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you see, I think it\u2019s fine to put some, or all, of your personal to-do\u2019s on your single workplace task list, as appropriate for your situation. Especially if they are things you\u2019ll need to attend to during the workday. A single list is always the best way to prioritize and manage urgencies throughout the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mar 13, 2018 A lot of people ask me \u201cshould I put personal items along with my work items on my single MYN\/1MTD task list, or should I separate them into two lists\u201d? It Depends, but Yes! This is an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4164"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4307,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4164\/revisions\/4307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}