To do list / organisation / white board for work

[greentomatos]

Does anyone have any amazing to do list/organisation planning techniques that have really helped them?

In my job I have several little projects on the go at any one time, loads of emails flying into my inbox on a variety of different things, lots of meetings, little tasks and also big tasks to get done... similar to lots of people I assume. Feels like I've got a lot of plates spinning at any one time.

Does anyone have a similar job and have any amazing tips to share for how they organise themselves? To do lists? A white board? Do you have one big master list or lots of little lists? Do you keep track of what you need to do on there rather than details of what you have done? One big rolling continuous list or a new one each day/week?

Thanks!!

I've used lots of things over the years but I'm very fond now of a big desk pad with tear off sheets and the days of the week printed on it/to do bits. I use a new one each week and transfer stuff over/cross it off as required. I love starting the week with a fresh list instead of the one from last week taunting me!
At home, I use a bullet journal

If you're on email constantly, use a digital solution that works with your email provider.
What email do you use?

I went on a course recently which talked about using kanban boards. You can either go old fashioned with sticky post it notes or digital using various apps. Looked great.

Trello was a popular one used by people on the course.

Weekly list, stuff from last week gets moved over.
If desperate times divide list into three

Stuff that will kill people

Stuff that is business critical but won't immediately endanger people

Everything else

I do the stuff in the first two columns first and ignore the everything else

But I work in a hospital

Asana

Kanban board for me. Digital rather than physical so it doesn't invite comment from micro-managers.

Trello for me too. The joy of dragging a card over to the 'complete' board And its free.

How do kanban and trello differ?
I love the idea of a "stuff that could kill people" list, as it would remain refreshingly empty in my line of work :)

Outlook with flags categories and reminders alongside rules for email routing

Trello is one tool that you can use for kanban. It is great. My whole team use it, makes it really easy to see/understand what's going on.

Oh thanks I will check out trello.

Oohh following

Ok I have signed up to Trello. Seems intuitive enough, but if anyone has any hints or tips for using it please enlighten me

Came on to suggest Kanban using trello. There are lots of YouTube tutorials to get you started. I have buckets for Backlog, Todo (this week), Doing, Awaiting Input and Done. Lots of fun dragging my cards around!

I just go with a whiteboard. It is there. I can’t ignore it! Right now jobs go in one spot, later in another. I love being able to wipe things off

I am a structural engineer and work for myself with no employees.

I have a whiteboard on the wall split into three columns; active jobs, completed jobs to be invoiced and jobs on hold.

Active jobs then are numbered in the order they need to be done in.

If I am waiting for information from others, I add the appropriate letter ie C for waiting for the Client, A for waiting for the Architect etc so I can quickly see whether I can work on a job and what order it needs to be done in when I have all the information I need.

I then have a separate piece of paper for the work planned that week but in more detail. I list briefly what needs to be done on each job. Plus if I get site queries or requests for quotations it goes on that list because it is my urgent list. Again it is numbered.

Usually I know what jobs I plan to finish at the end of each day so I have a definite daily target. So I would number every job necessary as a 1 for Monday and 2 for Tuesday etc.

This way I don't miss anything and I have the satisfaction of scratching out the completed job ( after adding it to the central column on my whiteboard).

Works for me but I love lists.

I also have lists for everything in life ie school stuff, dentist, dogs, bills, things to be ordered, phone calls to be made etc.

I bullet journal as I prefer to hand write things down and tick them off. I have generally have a longer term aims page and then a double page that I split into daily to do lists. I also make other project list pages as they come up.

If you use office 365 at work the. You may be better using one of the inbuilt tools like planner, then if you collaborate you can invite people to join your plan and assign/track tasks that way

I use and love trello.
I have a to do board for my week so each list is a day and each card is an action point.
If I don't do it on Monday I drag it to Tuesday.
On Monday morning I copy the board so I have a new one for the week ahead and all the old tasks are still there.

I also use it for managing projects by setting it up differently (depending on the project) and I love the fact I can give access to people so they can update it and share info.

I used to use a bullet journal but trello is better for me.

Kanban for me, I use Kanban flow

I use the principles of Inbox Zero, so all my emails go into Action Required. Then the idea is to look and action. I then could move to any of the following:
Delegated
Awaiting Response
Read Later
Planned

Works well for my current emails but hasn’t really touched the backlog.

What's this Kanban and Trello?! Can you use it for home life to do lists or is it mainly project management type stuff for work!

Whiteboard here. Straightforward and everyone can see it.

Just popping back to say thank you for all the suggestions.

I have started using Trello, set up a board for work and a board for home. It is a dream to use, so easy.

For my work board, I have added multiple lists (a list for each project) and I am adding to do items to those lists. I then have a 'doing' list, I plan on selecting 6 items each day from my other lists to move on to the 'doing' list and these will be my jobs for the next day.

I then have the 'done' list to move things too once they are done.

Loving it!!!