The blog

This winter, I have the privilege to write a ten weeks’ training course column about structure and personal productivity in Sweden’s largest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter. Until the end of March, I will cover the ten most important aspects of working in a structured and smooth manner (in my opinion).

The column is published in Swedish, but column No 2 is translated below:

Gather everything in a single place

In order to quickly and easily get an overview of what you could invest your time in right now, you need to keep your to-do-tasks in a single place. But where? That in itself is a minor detail. If you are inspired by writing, ticking boxes, crumpling up and throwing away by hand, then choose a single note-pad or a notebook which only contains to-do-tasks.
If you enjoy the flexibility and safety of working digitally, and you want to be able to synchronize your tasks, then choose one of the numerous digital tools available. Here is a list of my favorites at the moment:

• On the computer: Outlook’s task-function (Windows)/ Things (Mac OS X)
• iPhone: 2do
• Android: Astrid
• Online: Toodledo.com (if you tend to work alone) / Asana.com (if you mostly work in projects with others)

Choose a place or format for your to-do-tasks which you are truly comfortable with, and which suits you as a person and your situation. Is it flexible and mobile enough? Quick enough? With a nice design? Simple enough? Does it give you the overview you need?

I would gladly publish these columns in newspapers elsewhere, so if you have any suggestions of where or would like to help me out, please let me know in the comments or by emailing me.