Better By The Day

You want to get more completed. More accomplished. More set to done. Check your goals off your list so you can move on to the next and larger goal. So many methods to go about accomplishing your goals. I'm here to tell you there's more than one way to skin a cat as they say.

Task accomplishment for me personally has gone through many stages. As my responsibility increased with age and position I started to move away from using my memory to contain all my tasks and goals and used a small notebook.

Then I realized I needed to have a calendar and contact information and addresses. So the organizer became larger such as those offered by Franklin Covey.

I even tried organizing my tasks using small 3x5 cards and a portfolio as was popular by some products sold in what was Success magazine. I'm not even sure if they have that magazine anymore.

And now we have the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). I had the Axium that had the Palm OS. This only lasted about 3 months as it wasn't very handy having to pull out a stylus, boot up the PDA and then slowly have it recognize your handwriting for each task you added to your list.

Then came Windows Mobile. This was only marginally better than the Axium PDA. Took longer to boot up but had better task management.

So many ways to track my tasks and goals. They all more or less accomplished the same thing. They compiled what I wanted to do in a simple format. Years ago, before I even started thinking of organizers and project management and life goals, I would sit and make lists. My wife would laugh at me and all my lists.

• To Do lists.
• Things to do before I die lists.
• If I had all the money in the World lists.
• Lists of what to get accomplished in the next week, month, year.

Now comes the iPhone. Everything you need in the palm of your hand. Phone. Organizer. Task Manager. Internet. Surely I would be able to find the ultimate application from the App Store by which to finally end my search for the ultimate task-management and goal-accomplishment system.

• Toodledo An easy to use, online to-do list. Get organized, stay motivated, and be more productive.
• ListMonger ListMonger is an easy-to-use yet powerful list-making app for iPhone and iPod touch. Casual users will find it easy to grok, yet ListMonger offers a robust feature set to meet the needs of demanding list-aholics (you know who you are).
• Evernote (more of info capture than tasks) Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free.
• Reqall Use your voice, email, instant messaging, or text messaging. No other memory tool makes it as easy to capture, retrieve, and share ideas and things you need to do—anywhere, anytime.

Using the iPhone for tracking my tasks and goals is about as good as it gets. The only downside is you have to turn it on in order to see your current tasks. Yes it's but a few button clicks away, but still it's a process that's not immediate. Yes I like immediate, right now, in your face results.

All roads lead to paper! The old-school, tried and true method that works the best to me is simply paper.

• Moleskine journals. All different sizes and colors.
• Post-It notes.
• 3 x 5 cards.
• Writing pads.

I've come back around to where I started. Making lists. They are the simplest and readily available. All you need is a flat piece of paper and a writing instrument. I find the smallest of the Moleskin books to be the most accomadating. It's called the Cahier Pocket Moleskine. You can keep it with you in your pocket and takes next to nothing to pull it out and capture your ideas or see what your current tasks and goals are.

I also use the ever so easy Post-It note. The advantage of this you can stick it on your Moleskine where you'll see the tasks and goals even better than in the pocket organizer. I also have notepads and Post-It notes within arms-reach while at my desk. I don't want an idea or task to not get captured only because I do not have a place to put it.

Bottom line, just use something to track your tasks or goals.