How to work much more efficiently with a calendar

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Are you sure a paper or app to-do list is the best way to get things done? In one of the pages we talked about that this method is not ideal and the calendar is much better suited for these purposes. Here are three more good reasons to plan your day on the calendar.

Psychology of push notifications

If you've ever tried shareware games on your smartphone, you know how effective push notifications can be. Since the main task of such a game is to extract at least a little money from you, the developers add special reminders so that you often return to the game and eventually buy some resources or achievements. You receive notifications every time “you have accumulated enough mana”, “haven't checked your quarry for a long time”, “you have two dragons”. And it works very well, as such free apps raise huge sums of money from in-game sales.

As it was accurately noted in the article on TechCrunch, push notifications act on us in the same way as a call to Pavlov's dog: they form a conditioned reflex.

Notifications set us up for a certain reaction. So, when the next notification comes, we, without hesitation, react to it in a certain way. That's why to-do calendar notifications are a great tool to be more productive. By scheduling something using the calendar and setting a reminder time, you create a personal push notification.

At the set time, you will receive a quick and effective reminder, which will automatically be followed by your reaction - quick concentration and completion of the task.

Feeling of limited time

If you periodically think about productivity and are looking for a way to increase it, then you have probably heard of the Pomodoro technique. In short, this is a time management method, when you do one thing for 25 minutes, and then rest for 5 minutes. After four of these sessions, you take 10 minutes to rest.

There are several reasons why this technique works great, but in the context of this article, one of them is important, namely the sense of urgency that a timer creates. By placing a watch within sight and watching the minutes pass, you begin to understand how important every moment is.

Scheduling things with a calendar has a similar effect. When you receive a reminder, start working, knowing that you have a very limited amount of time to complete the task. You can only do it now, and then a reminder of the next task will come, and you will have to proceed to its implementation.

You see the following tasks and understand that they are also important and must be completed. This helps you not to postpone things until later and not to stretch the time of their completion.

The calendar creates a sense of urgency and urgency, so you stay focused longer on the task and don't take unplanned breaks.

Complex task description

The main problem with to-do lists is the lack of a comprehensive description of the task, the priority and the time it takes to complete it. Of course, you can specify the time and priority on the sheet next to the task, but without visual reinforcement in the form of notifications, this will not work as well. So you are likely to periodically think and look at your to-do list to figure out what to do next.

But if you distribute all tasks in time in the calendar, you will not have such questions. You will never think about what to do next. One look at the calendar and you know everything.

For the next week, try scheduling each day on your calendar and setting reminders for each task. Do not plan things in your mind, because everything is much clearer in the calendar. You can see how much time you have and how many tasks you can actually complete.