Bit Literacy On Managing Your To Do’s

Cindy King — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:00:40 +0000

Book & Product Reviews

Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload is a book written by Mark Hurst. It covers many different tips to help improve your productivity in today’s age of information overload.

We reviewed Mark’s book here last Sunday. And on Wednesday we started going deeper into Mark’s Bit Literacy by going on a Media Diet. On Thursday we continued with Inbox Management and today let’s end with the To Do List.

Here is one more simple way to improve your productivity.

One of the things Mark presents in his book is a very effective style of handling the long list of things you have to do.

The “To Do” List

First you need to create a “to do list” or a “To Do”. There are several products available, but Mark recommends choosing one with about the fewest features possible. Mark offers his software that is an inexpensive online tool as being the best solution because it was built to do exactly this.

Here are two important guidelines:

To Dos are action items.
To Dos are not intended to be lists.

An action item can be Go Shopping. You need to create a separate list associated with the Go Shopping action.

To Do Actions

Each To Do is assigned to a specific date
You can create To Dos by email
Each To Do is ranked by priority
Each To Do can contain a summary

Set The Date

Each To Do is allocated a specific day to be done. They can be moved as far into the future as possible so you don’t think about them until you have to. If you have a cake to pick up in 10 days, any time thinking about picking it up beforehand is as waste of time. If you have time available and choose to, you can start on the To Do list for future tasks.

Use Emails To Yourself As Reminders

Users should be able to create To Dos with their email. There are tricks you can do, such as emailing yourself at a future date. If someone tells you to call back in 3 months, it is possible to place an email in most systems with a future mail date. Forward yourself the email to arrive in your inbox just before the date in question. This keeps you totally on top of all situations.

Set Priority

You must give each To Do a priority. You should list your daily To Dos in the sequence of importance. This way if you do not accomplish all your actions, the least important is the one that is missed.

Summary To Follow Up With

Create an appropriate follow-up and completion process. Every To Do that you delegate must be confirmed as having been accepted by the person in question. The person who receives a To Do must send a completion notice.

This may see like micro-managing at first, but if you assign a To Do and the action is not completed, it is you that will probably have the problems. Assigning a To Do that is due in 3 weeks deserves a follow-up if the person assigned the task has not replied on time. That length of time will differ depending on each circumstance.

A To Do System Helps You Get Things Done

If you spend a little time to select a good system you will find one to help you get more things done.

Mark Hurst’s book, Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, gives you a simple approach. It is easy for just about everyone to implement.

That’s all I’ll be writing about Bit Literacy. I hope this has also come at a good time for you to review your own productivity.

Next week, it’s on to something else.

Communication For International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with communication for international sales:

A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs By Victor C. Pellegrino
Content Rich By Jon Wuebben
Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett
Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish
Stories That Sell By Casey Hibbard
The Culturally Customized Web Site By Nitish Singh And Arun Pereira
The Magic Of Pre-Writing By Steven Osborne
The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog By Liz Strauss

International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international sales:

All of the Little Sales Books by Jeffrey Gitomer
Asinine Advertising By Herschell Gordon Lewis
Influencer: The Power To Change Anything by Kerry Patterson – Joseph Grenny – David Maxfield – Ron McMillian & Al Switzler

International Web Marketing

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international web marketing:

Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload By Mark Hurst
Dotcomology The Science Of Making Money Online By Stone Evans
How The Internet Works By Preston Gralla
How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders By Catherine Seda
Landing Page Optimization By Tim Ash
Mastering Online Marketing By Mitch Meyerson
Multichannel Marketing By Akin Arikan
Online Competitive Intelligence By Helen P. Burwell
ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
Stats Faceslap By Ed Rivis
The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy By Ed Rivis
Website Optimization by Andrew B. King

Here are some Product Reviews:

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous …and without affiliate links. These are books I have read recently and only the ones that I share with friends. So all of the reviews you find here are on books and products that I highly recommend.

Also, as these are books and products that I have recently read since, this is not a list of my all-time favorite books. Hopefully I will get around to reviewing my favorite culture and international business books sometime soon.

Use these skills in your international tactics on the…
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• With trust and empathy

• With strong cross-cultural communication

International Business Success Basics

• Do you feel at a loss with regards to dealing with international business?

This guide gives you the background information you need right from the start.

Cindy King's International Business Blog » to do lists