Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Organize Your Tasks for the Day with the 1-3-5 Method

I've been using the 1-3-5 method of day planning off and on for the past few months. It involves making a list of what you want to accomplish for the day: 1 'big' thing, 3 'medium' things and 5 'little' things.

I first read about the concept on Lifehacker and liked it immediately for its simplicity.

I started off by jotting down my outline in a paper notebook. Then, I tried creating a template in Evernote, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

After a bit of googling, I stumbled upon this minimalistic website. Drafting my plan for the day now takes just a few minutes.



I pin the tab in Chrome and use it in conjunction with several other task management tools that I plan to blog about soon.

How do you organize what you want to accomplish during your work day? Please share your tips in the comments.


Jenna Weiner is a rather geeky girl with average social skills and an affinity for: Google Apps, Salesforce.com, Pinterest, Firefly, dresses, indoor plants and life-hacking. Have a suggestion for a post or a question? Feel free to get in touch.
Email: rathergeeky@gmail.com
Twitter: @RatherGeeky
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4 comments:

  1. CarmJune 18, 2013 at 12:30 PM

    Thanks for this tip. I use Any.Do to put together my todo lists, but sometimes when there's 20 items on that list, it can be overwhelming and I end up pushing off lots of things to the next day. Will try out this method.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousJune 18, 2013 at 2:04 PM

      @Carm, thanks for your comment.

      Any.Do is a really neat app! I'm currently using Asana for tracking my work tasks so that I can see a history of what I've completed, which this 1-3-5 site doesn't allow. But, just for planning purposes it really helps me organize my day.

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  2. MrstarzanJune 18, 2013 at 4:21 PM

    Whoever yells loudest goes to the top of my list. Then I look for people to yell at. It is a quite effective, albeit, noisy, list technique. My final yell of the day is: "Jenna, I haven't seen an ER from you in a long time!" When all else quiets down I am still using RTM quite effectively for common repetitive task reminders.

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  3. UnknownAugust 20, 2013 at 10:30 PM

    Dear Jenna,

    I am absolutely impressed and pleased with the tips that you drive out to categorize the tasks by 1-3-5 models. Its really alarming. Well sometimes st stage being the tasks getting categorized also we come across certain situations that cannot be tackled effectively.

    I prefer using task tracking software for better task management. That has helped me a lot in managing the tasks soberly. Now if I can apply your tricks of 1-3-5 I am sure that I will have more productive aspect of work.

    Thanks any ways for the tips.

    Jennifer

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