2.3 help out your short term memory: task managers
whether you put all your tasks in a notebook, app, or on the back of various receipts, many of us want some sort of system to capture all that we need to do. task managers will do you one better by storing that information, and sending it back to you when you can actually take action on it. simply put, your brain cannot hold it all - so why not give it some help??
learn all about task managers in this week's episode!
mentioned in the show:
-
Whether you scribble them on a notebook, whether you shout reminders into your phone or invest in a piece of software to help you manage it. I think that there is one thing that can save so much brain power and energy, and that is a system for containing your tasks. So in this week's episode, let's talk about task managers.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
March madness is a month of free writing resources, trackers, dash boards, and prizes. Sign up for free at the link in the show notes.
The task manager is exactly what it sounds like. It's a system that helps you manage what things you need to do. And the secret about a task manager is that while it also tells you what things you need to do, and when, it really helps you get into the habit of estimating your time and energy and various other resources that you need in order to do those tasks.
It's when everything's in one place -and it doesn't really matter what that place is, but we'll talk about some of the pros and cons of various different ones in a minute - but when everything's in one place, you can start to see, okay, this is too much for one day or, I have a little bit of space here. What can I do? It's the first step in gaining some visibility into how you're working and then maybe making some changes that might be more sustainable in the long run.
So a task manager can be very simple. It can be a notebook. The bullet journal is a task management system, for example, which is just a notebook that you keep a running list of moving tasks from day to day, as you need to, or want to. It can be a system that's even more chaotic than that, which is various notepads or receipts, and jotted down notes in your phone.
But it can also be a very complicated system that you invest a lot of time and maybe even some money in setting up. Something like Asana or Trello or click up, which has projects and boards and recurring features that help you do a little bit more advanced things, but no matter which tool you use to do it, I do think that test managers have a lot of benefits.
And here are the ways that I think you can think about using them. And if any of these appeal to you, then it might be time for you to invest in a task manager. So the first is maybe the most simple, but can be the most revolutionary: it's capturing tasks. I don't know about you, but my brain likes to spit up reminders of things that I need to do or could do or should do at the most inconvenient times. I'll be in the shower and thinking about how it's somebody's birthday next week. I could be writing, thinking about how I need to schedule that dentist appointment.
But if I have a task manager, then I have a central place to send all of those random brain injections of things I need to do. And I can deal with them in a time and place of my choosing. So that might look like quickly opening up my task manager or yelling into my phone "buy birthday present" or "go to the dentist" and then dealing with it afterwards.
But capturing tasks as a regular part of your workflow really starts to pay off, not just for the random life things that you also need to keep doing while you are a grad student, but for the things that are so easy to slip your mind. You see a CFP in your email. And so you send it into your task manager and say, okay, remind me to work on this in three weeks when I'm going to have a little bit more time and then boom.
You remember it and not just because they send you a 12 hours left to submit email. So if all of your tasks are going to the same place, it's easier to see them and then have a system for scheduling them in a way that makes sense for your rhythm.
You can also remind yourself to do the tasks that might not occur to you. So in my task manager, every Friday, it reminds me to clean up my office and especially clean out my downloads folder because I am notorious for leaving everything in my downloads folder. So every task manager that I set up has this recurring task on Friday, that reminds me to do this thing that's important, but would honestly never occur to me. And honestly, doesn't seem that fun most of the time, but if it's there, I can sometimes snooze it. I can move it to Monday or I can do it on Thursday if I'm feeling really motivated, but it regularly reminds me to do these kinds of tasks that would have otherwise slipped my mind.
Task managers are really great for the non urgent, but important tasks that really never seem to rise to the top of your anxiety stack. So. If you know that you have to grade five papers by tomorrow or else there will be severe consequences. You probably don't need a task manager to remind you of that. But if you have things like, don't forget to double check that my paperwork was submitted on time. That's the kind of task that a task manager is really going to excel at because it wouldn't have otherwise occurred to you, but it's still really important to do.
So I think that most people, most of the time are going to benefit from some sort of a task management system. I don't think that everyone needs a piece of software. I don't think that everyone needs a special app on their phone. A notebook can be just fine for some people. But if you do have a little bit more capacity in your workflow points, like if you have a little bit of an interest using a piece of software, especially one that links with your phone can be really useful.
So ToDoIst is one of my favorites. It has a pretty generous free plan, but it's basically just a to-do list. You can separate things out into categories, but it's just a running to-do list. There aren't a lot of bells and whistles, so you can't create too complicated a system. If you're working on a team, something like a sauna can be great because you can have shared work boards. You can collaborate, you can assign tasks to different people. It might be a little bit high-powered for one person, but if you've liked the way it looks and the way it functions also has a group, a great free program.
Trello is along the same lines, especially a great for people who like a Kanban style board of task managers, where you have categories for not started, in progress and done, which can be really motivating. And you can get as fancy as something like ClickUp or monday.com, which has all kinds of automations and trigger functions that are cool to play with, but maybe a little bit high powered for what you need to do.
But no matter what task manager you pick, I do think that having some sort of integration between your phone and your computer can be really helpful if only because your brain will spit out reminders about your dissertation and vice versa. When you're at your desk or when you're not. So a phone integration, whether that's an app or a web clipper can be really useful to help you integrate those things no matter where you are at your desk or not.
The bottom line is that a task manager saves you, brainpower. Your short-term memory can't hold all of this information at once. So outsource a little bit of that work to a task manager, so that the entire responsibility of remembering to do all of the details for all of your jobs and all of your human responsibilities, every single day has a backup plan. Thank you so much and I'll see you next week.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!