the e-mails you need to send, the documents you need to draft or edit, and so on.
Because I fly a lot, I even maintain an 'Online' action list, separate from my 'At Computer' one. When I'm on a plane, I can't easily connect to the Web or to my server, as many actions require. So instead of having to rethink what I can and can't do whenever I look at my 'At Computer' list, I can trust that none of my 'At Computer' actions require that I be connected, which frees my mind to make choices based on other criteria.
Think carefully about
If you have a computer only at work, you may not need a separate 'At Computer' list; 'Office Actions' may cover those actions because the office is the only place you can do them anyway. (Similarly, if you have a computer only at home, and it's not a laptop, you may be able to put computer-specific actions on your 'At Home' list.)
This list could, of course, be nothing more elaborate than a Post-it that you keep in your planner somewhere, or a screen in an 'Errands' category of the 'To Do' section on your Palm organizer. It's often helpful to track sublists within individual 'Errands' items. For instance, as soon as you realize you need something from the hardware store, you might want to make 'Hardware Store' the list item and then append a sublist of all the things you want to pick up there, as you think of them. On the low-tech end, you could create a 'Hardware Store' Post-it; on the high-tech side, if you were using a digital list, you could attach a 'note' to 'Hardware Store' on your list and input the details there.
Because I travel in major metropolitan areas so much, I keep
If you have an office at home, as I do, anything that can be done only there goes on the 'At Home' list. (If you work
Standing meetings and people you deal with on an ongoing basis may need their own 'Agenda' lists.
These next actions should be put on separate 'Agenda' lists for each of those people and for that meeting (assuming that you attend it regularly). Professionals who keep a file folder to hold all the things they need to go over with their boss already use a version of this method. If you're conscientious about deter-mining all your next actions, though, you may find that you'll need somewhere between three and fifteen of these kinds of lists. I recommend that separate files or lists be kept for bosses, partners, assistants, spouses, and children. You should also keep the same kind of list for your attorney, financial adviser, accountant, and/or computer consultant, as well as for anyone else with whom you might have more than one thing to go over the next time you talk on the phone.
If you participate in standing meetings—staff meetings, project meetings, board meetings, committee meetings, whatever—they, too, deserve their own files, in which you can collect things that will need to be addressed on those occasions.
Often you'll want to keep a running list of things to go over with someone you'll be interacting with only for a limited period of time. For instance, if you have a contractor doing a significant piece of work on your house or property, you can create a list for him for the duration of the project. As you're walking around the site after he's left for the day, you may notice several things you need to talk with him about, and you'll want that list to be easy to capture and to access as needed.
Given the usefulness of this type of list, your system should allow you to add 'Agendas' ad hoc, as needed, quickly and simply. For example, inserting a page for a person or a meeting within an 'Agenda' section in a loose- leaf notebook planner takes only seconds, as does adding a dedicated 'Memo' in a PDA's 'Agenda' category.
To-read items that you know will demand more than two minutes of your time are usually best managed in a separate physical stack-basket labeled 'Read/Review.' This is still a 'list' by my definition, but one that's more efficiently dealt with by grouping the documents and magazines themselves in a tray and/or portable folder.
For many people, the 'Read/Review' stack can get quite large. That's why it's critical that the pile be reserved only for those longer-than-two-minute things that you actually
It's practical to have that stack of reading material at hand and easy to grab on the run when you're on your way to a meeting that may be late starting, a seminar that may have a window of time when nothing is going on, or a dentist appointment that may keep you waiting to get your teeth cleaned. Those are all great opportunities to crank through that kind of reading. People who don't have their 'Read/Review' material organized can waste a lot of time, since life is full of weird little windows when it could be processed.
Organizing 'Waiting For'
Like reminders of the actions