I usually use Asana as a personal project management tool. Before using Asana, I have also used various types of project management tools, ranging from Todoist, Wunderlist, Microsoft Todo, Zoho Project, Basecamp, Wrike, Trello, and others, but eventually settled on Asana in the last few years.
I usually list tasks that need to be done and routine notes into Asana, such as school tasks, work-related tasks, online training routines, new knowledge routines, reading habits, or ebook schedules, to even scheduling medication reminders 😀
These notes are useful because they can serve as references so that nothing is missed. The schedule can also serve as a guide as to what needs to be done on a particular day.
Although beneficial, having too many work schedules can make it counterproductive. For example, when I am excited to learn English and improve my TOEFL score, there are many daily schedules that I make, including:
- Learning on Magoosh
- Learning Structure & Written Expression
- Watching Teacher Emma’s Youtube channel
- Watching Hadar Shemesh’s Youtube channel
- Learning online from the British Council
- Learning from smartphone apps
That’s just one target for learning English. After taken graduate (master) program, there are additional tasks such as learning the Python programming language, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Business Intelligence, Data science, and others. There are also reading tasks, watching Curiositystream, Netflix, making videos for the Youtube channel Zeze Zahra, and various other routines. In conclusion, too many tasks can make life difficult to manage 😂🤣
After reviewing this situation, I then made some adjustments, including in the form of grouping and scheduling.
Grouping:
Grouping tasks with the same goal, creating one or two schedules a week so that they don’t have to be done every day. For example, for the example of six tasks related to learning English, it is considered one group and done alternately twice a week.
Another example is for learning the Python programming language, I learn through CodeWithMosh, Codefinity, Codecademy, and Manning Publication, which is considered one group and scheduled twice a week alternately. I can also complete one training before following the next one.
Scheduling:
Scheduling routine activities so that they don’t have to be daily schedules. For example, uploading new videos on the Zeze Zahra Youtube channel is initially done every day. As a result, I was overwhelmed with making new videos or editing them. For the solution, I made a schedule to upload videos twice a week, every Monday and Thursday.
Having a schedule means that I don’t have to rush to make videos. I can also make videos and upload them to be scheduled for publishing in the next month. I can try to make the best possible videos and still maintain the channel update rhythm.
There are still some daily routine activities such as exercise schedules, blog writing, Quran recitation, and others, but now the schedule is not too burdened with too many tasks.
Reviews like this are important to be done periodically because the tools or plans we make are ultimately for our own benefit. If our intentions are good but the implementation causes overload and overwhelming problems in personal life, we can adjust them according to our needs.
