In October I posted about a planning challenge, where I was trying to figure out how to organize and track many upcoming tasks for this holiday season.
In that post, I outlined my idea to create a couple of new lists in Google Tasks (namely a November and December list), in addition to my usual Do Today, This Week and Upcoming lists.
I planned to “assign” dates to many of the tasks, in an effort to sort of spread out the workload over November and December. Like a rough sketch of what I’d do when, with the idea that then it wouldn’t all pile up.
(I just re-read that post and realize that it was probably really confusing and most of you probably had no idea what I was talking about. 😅 ah, well.)
But I just want to say: overall, this system is working really, really well!! I know most of your eyes probably glazed over and you do not care, but, I still wanted to share that this idea has been a big win, I think. 🙂
Important to note: I have not necessarily been doing everything by the assigned due date. But it’s been really easy to flip between those 5 lists, click and update the due date to reassign it if something’s overdue (also shows up on my Google Calendar) and generally feel like I have a handle on what’s coming up.
I also like being able to decide, for example, nope, this thing is not actually happening this week after all- and then I’ll just drag it off my This Week list and back over to the general “November” list (and re-assign it for a different date!).
I’m feeling pretty productive and although the Christmas season always ends up kind of stressing me out (mostly just gifts!), I feel like things are rolling along. November at our house is always this transitional month in the Midwest that includes a good amount of “household” tasks to get the house ready for winter, too.
From my Completed To-Do lists in last few weeks:
- booked all our hotels for spring break! More on this another time, but we’re going to Italy. Milan –> Florence –> (briefly) Cinque Terre + Pisa –> Venice.
- took a return back and mailed another one back
- got our air mattress back from someone who had borrowed it, in anticipation of my nieces/nephew needing it when they visit in December
- went with Ivan to local glass store Monday and ordered bathroom mirror this morning! Yes… final few remodel tasks almost done….
- drained and cleaned out the hot tub! (Today, on my vacation day. Not insanely fun, but really needed open time to do it and it’s 55 and sunny today! Perfect. Relieved to check that off the list.)
- wrote a guest blog post! (stay tuned..😜)
- made dinner reservations for 12/15 at a fun Christmas place for when family here
- took our Halloween decorations down
- WE SOLD THE NERF GUNS!! woohoo. We got $150 for all the Nerf guns, plus another $30 for these big rechargeable battery packs, so $180! Best part- they’re not in my basement anymore!!!
- Ivan also sold a couple North Face jackets of the boys on Facebook Marketplace.
- we bought a bathroom light fixture (and my dad installed it). It looks great.
- my mom helped decorate my basement for Christmas and put my Christmas village up. Early, yes, but that’s where the festivities happen and now it’s all set.
- rescheduled a dog grooming appt.
- Last weekend, Ivan did about 80% of all our fall yard cleanup. (Leaves, mow, trim bushes, put away patio furniture, etc.)
- He also cleaned our entire garage on Sunday and scrubbed and mopped the floor. (We have an epoxy floor and it needs a deep clean a couple times a year.)
- we got the fireplace fixed!
- I sent a reminder email to the driver’s ed place (as I had on my list, lol) and also took Asher to the in-person session Sundy. He passed his temps test! Now he just needs to turn 15 (on Dec 2nd) and he’ll be able to drive (with us).
Whew, that’s a lot! And obviously that’s on top of WORK, driving to swim, cooking dinner, groceries, the usual. But honestly, I feel like how I have everything all sketched it out in my systematic lists in a realistic way, it hasn’t even been that bad.
Unfortunately, there’s still a lot on the November and December lists.
Outdoor lights, upstairs decorations/ tree, SHOPPING, Thanksgiving stuff, order Christmas card, figure out kids’ holiday clothes, book Italy flights, wrap presents, make cookies….
I mean, not “unfortunately”. That makes it sound all scary and negative. I feel like you all know what I mean. 🙂
I’m already over my word count, so I guess I’ll just keep going: One big thing that’s been a saving grace this year is Asher not having all the usual club swim meets he usually does.
Since he did volleyball all fall, he didn’t re-join club swim until just a few weeks ago, meaning NO MEETS. (And beginning this Monday, he’ll be doing high school swim, so won’t be doing club anymore. They just pro-rated these few interim weeks so he could get back in the pool a little before high school season.)
But I was thinking back to previous years when he was full swing in club swim… throughout October and November, he usually always had multiple full weekend swim meets! Including typically 2 “far away” meets in November, right before Thanksgiving.
And we just haven’t had that this fall! It’s been…. quite nice. 😉 Yes, we’ve had some other things fill in, like abnormal travel in October this year, plus soccer/volleyball, but the weekend time commitment has just not been the same at all as club swim or club soccer was all these years.
HS swim will still be busy, as I outlined the other day, but it’s just not the same as the Friday to Sunday, stay-in-a-hotel and spend-your-entire-weekend-at-the-pool club swim meets. The high school meets are a single day, shorter, quick and often local.
I believe Sarah posted a similar sentiment recently about some intense club sports falling off the schedule at their house and feeling similarly FREEEEEEEE(R) for the first time in a long time on the weekends!!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that the weather cooperated with my vacation day so I could get the hot tub drained, cleaned and refilled. It always makes me a little nervous when I have that looming, because if it suddenly starts SNOWING or is freezing, I can’t do it! And the water NEEDS to be changed before the long winter months where I literally cannot attach a hose and fill a hot tub! I usually can’t realistically change the water again then until April if I’m lucky.
GRATEFUL KAE 
You have gotten a lot of things off your to do list! And your spring break plans sound amazing! I’ve never been to Italy but would like to get there someday! Maybe in 10 years when our kids are similar in age to yours. We haven’t talked about spring break yet. We didn’t have the best time last year between us being cool there and my grandma declining and then passing when we got back so I feel like Phil is not in favor of going somewhere… plus Paul’s spring break falls during his busy time at work. But I need to figure this out so I can block off weeks that I can’t travel… I already have 7 trips booked for 2025. Gulp.
I think I might put our tree up on Sunday. Ideally I would assemble it when the boys are out of the house and then have them help decorate but I don’t have quiet Friday afternoons anymore so I just need to accept that they will be around when I put it together. Which is fine.
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Maybe they can have screentime while you put the tree up? Or Phil could just take them downstairs for a little while to give you some space to deal with the tree in peace?
I want to decorate this weekend too. It feels a little early (see my comment to J below about our tree… ha! It just feels like “fall” when my yard has leaves all over the place still.), but I like the idea of just getting that all taken care of. Then I can switch focus to things like gift buying, wrapping, cookies, etc. If I wait to decorate, then I feel like I have to do that on top of all the other stuff at the same time. Plus throw Thanksgiving weekend in there…
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I saw so much Christmas stuff today when I was out and about, and I’m not ready. I don’t mean not ready for Christmas Day, I mean, not ready for it to be Christmas Season. That’s OK, everyone should decorate when they want to. I’m laying low for now (though I have bought my cards and a few gifts, so I’m not completely out of touch.)
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Right, you should do it when it works for you! I think for me it feels “slightly” early, just because our big tree in the front still has almost all of its leaves, which always makes it feel still like fall to me. (It’s always the LAST tree in the neighborhood to drop its leaves, so we’re always out there in freezing cold cleaning up the leaves….). But given the late Thanksgiving and swim season and family stuff in December, I’m mostly just motivated to get going early so things don’t all pile up on me!
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So many things checked off your lists already. I love it.
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I am always so fascinated to see other people’s methods for completing tasks, probably because my own “method” is so ineffective! Love your lists. And look at all you’ve accomplished!
My own lists keep getting recycled over and over, with so little getting DONE. Argh.
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Awww, ha! I hear you. I am guilty of “recycling” tasks too. lol. Just because I have it on my list doesn’t always necessarily mean that I’ll do it…. But, I do really love having this Tasks system. I know that I always have a place I can easily add a to-do item (from my phone or computer), and I KNOW I will see it, because I review these lists daily (because it’s right there in the sidebar of my Google calendar or Gmail, which I also look at multiple times per day).
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Nice work! I am a huge fan of Google, Google tasks etc. and I often do the same thing as you do, I will just move it forward if I need to, and I will often set it knowing I may move it forward, just so I will have a reminder to myself. However, I did try to have more than one list, but I ended up not really looking at the second list or adding anything to it, so I just have one now. So I will be interested to hear what your strategy is for having multiple lists. I suppose that since the tasks are all on your calendar, you can look at them that way? But do you use the side bar too and just flip back and forth? Inquiring minds want to know.
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I primarily look at the various lists in the side bar of my Google Calendar! I can’t imagine only having one, haha!! You can see my “list of lists” above. I have lots of them, but I MOSTLY use the Do Today, This Week, and Upcoming lists. This is where I keep shorter range things. Examples would be things like “sign up for swim volunteer shift” (due by this Friday- would put on my This Week list), or “buy Asher’s birthday gifts” (put on Upcoming, as I don’t necessarily need to do NOW but sometime in next few weeks). I look at these 3 lists every single day. So let’s say it’s now Tuesday morning, and I look over my lists. I’ll see that my “This Week” list says to sign up for a volunteer shift. So maybe I’ll think, ok I’ll take care of that today. So I’ll drag it to my Do Today list and then when I do it over my lunch hour, I’ll check it off.
All the other lists I tend to add things to that are not as time sensitive. For example, I might add to the Household list when I think of it that I’d like to get a new set of sheets for the guest room. Not urgent, but just something I want to do eventually. I usually review all the other lists once a week on Fridays. So perhaps one week I’ll see that task on Household and think, hmm, I should probably get sheets sooner than later- we have guests coming in a couple months. So then I’ll move it to my Upcoming list, so it will get on my shorter-term radar (and like I said, I review the Do Today, This Week and Upcoming lists daily). If it’s on my Upcoming list, it’s more likely to make it onto my This Week list. And then if I’m planning my week and reviewing my lists and I know I’ll be near Macy’s on Saturday, for example- I’ll plan to stop and pick up some sheets!
I do NOT always “assign” times/ dates for tasks- in fact I usually don’t. But for this holiday season, I have been, just since I want to space things out/ schedule out a realistic cadence.
Hope that all makes sense!
(I also have the Tasks app on my phone, and I occasionally open it in the big Desktop app view as well. But 9 times out of 10, I just flip between my lists in the sidebar of Google Cal or Gmail.)
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Oh, and when I DO assign a task with a date/time, of course I can also see them right on my Google Calendar as well. So in those cases, I use both the task list + the calendar view.
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Interesting! If you don’t assign a date then it isn’t on your calendar right? I think that would annoy me. I don’t mind moving it forward but I need a little prod and without the prod, I probably would not check the side bar. I guess if you had an entire list without dates, that would be like you said, something you just check once a week and deal with. I will have to share my procedure at some point, as I also use Monday.com to keep track of things that I am in progress doing, like travel planning, when I need to keep things all in one place.
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Your system seems very effective but too complicated for me. I do find it super helpful to get all the to dos for the season or a specific project listed out in advance.
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Um… well let’s see. I took down my Halloween decorations! I seriously just did that. After reading your post I’m thinking I need to get a little more ambitious around here.
Yay on selling the Nerf guns! That’s awesome (and money that can be put towards Christmas presents.) And ooh how exciting- a trip to Italy! That is going to be awesome.
Double kudos to Asher for getting his permit, and NOT doing club swim this fall. Sounds like a great decision for all involved.
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Having a system in place is so satisfying. And when you see all the things you already handled. Bliss.
I can’t quite understand your structure as I am not using google but it doesn’t matter as long as you feel you got a grip.
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I want to put hearts all over this post! I am one of those people that want to see other people’s planning systems, just give them to me ALL! Lol
seriously, amazing. I am so done with feeling stressed about gifts. I had a talk with T- we will not get each other gifts but will purchase a new living room couch set instead. For the kids, it’s a budget:$200 each which I still think is a lot but I won’t fight T on it since he agreed to the couch idea.
Spring break: wow, Italy!! I went last summer and it was incredible. For our spring break, we are staying out since in the summer we are doing France for a month.
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Nice work on that to-do list! Doesn’t it feel great to keep checking things off? 🙂
I am always interested to hear about other people’s planning system, so share away!
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