Task Management for Beginners: Your First Week of Brain-Dump, Priorities and Today's 3

Project & Development

Task Management for Beginners: Your First Week of Brain-Dump, Priorities and Today's 3

A beginner task management template for anyone building a system for the first time: write every task down, set priorities, and keep only 3 for today, all within your first week. On the whiteboard, the left page holds a frame for dumping every task of the week, a four-quadrant importance and urgency matrix, three frames for today's 3, this week and waiting on others, and the four steps of the daily loop of 5 minutes each morning and evening; the right page holds a weekly log of 5 rows by 3 columns, the Friday 10-minute KPT review in three columns of Keep, Problem and Try, two stuck-point frames and a frame on how to keep going. The task board has five columns, Brain-dumped, Today's 3, This week, Waiting on others and Done, and starts with 4 parent tasks and 12 subtasks, from the brain dump to the Friday review, all not started. Task management habits fail when one item is too big and too many go into a day, so the board splits each task to its first step and caps today at three.

0 Likes 0 Copies Author: WeProcess
task management prioritizing tasks to-do list time management Eisenhower matrix
Sign up free and use this template

Once you have a free account, you can copy this template from the marketplace

Whiteboard preview

Preview mode Task Management for Beginners: Your First Week of Brain-Dump, Priorities and Today's 3
Sign up free and use this template

Whiteboard preview

1. Write down every task for this wee... 2. Sort by importance and urgency Schedule it Do it now Drop it or do less Delegate or keep it short 3. Today's 3 (never add a fourth) 4. This week (write the weekday on it) 5. Waiting on others (you cannot move) 6. The daily loop (5 minutes morning,... 7. The week's log 9. Stuck: the list never gets shorter 10. Stuck: only the urgent work gets ... 11. How to keep it going Task Management: ... How to use: (1) W... Today's 3 and wha... Rules and times y... Slipped or waiting What you learned How to write things downSplit any big job down to its first stepe.g. Prepare the deck -> Write 10 lines of outline Easy to forgete.g. unanswered emails, approvals you are waiting on, recurring paperwork, appointments and errands at home What the list showede.g. 26 items this week. Nine of them took under five minutes, so they were cleared in one go You know your head is emptyWhen you can say that is everything, move on to board 2. Anything you remember later goes straight back into this frame 縦軸: Importance (u... Big payoff, deadline still far off. Put the working time itself into your calendar and defend it. e.g. studying for a certification, writing a how-to guide. One of today's 3 always comes from this quadrant. Fill today's 3 from this quadrant first. Estimate the time, and for whatever does not fit, renegotiate the deadline or hand it over. e.g. paperwork due today Work you keep doing out of habit. Stop it once, and if nothing goes wrong, leave it stopped. e.g. a newsletter you never read Speed is the whole value here. First ask whether someone else can take it; if not, use a stock reply or a template and finish in five minutes. e.g. answering about meeting times e.g. finish one quote (60 min) e.g. write 10 lines of the guide outline (30 min) Once all three are done, you may pull work forward from this week e.g. Wednesday, file all the expense claims together e.g. Tuesday, check next month's plan with a senior colleague A task with no weekday on it usually does not happen this week e.g. waiting for A Corp to answer. Chase it if nothing arrives by the 5th e.g. waiting for your manager to approve. Say a word on the morning of the 4th Always write how long you will wait. Without that you forget 5 min, morningPick today's 3 from the four quadrants on board 2. Two from the top right and one from the top left is the guide.Estimate the time, and if the total is more than the hours you have, drop one. During the dayWork through the three from the top down.Anything new that comes in does not push into today's 3; add it to the frame on board 1. 5 min, eveningMark what you finished and write one line on why anything slipped.If the reason is no time, that is the sign your estimate was too optimistic. 10 min, FridayRead the week's log and decide what next week holds.Anything that slipped three days running gets split smaller or dropped.Write one line each for Keep, Problem and Try in the KPT on board 8. Today's 3 Done Slipped and why Mon 1) quote 2) guide outline 3) sort receipts 1) and 3) 2) (meeting ran over, never started) Tue 1) guide outline 2) chase A Corp 3) check next month 1) 2) 3) none Wed 1) check the invoice 2) file expenses 3) three replies 2) 3) 1) (waiting on their file, until the 5th) Thu 1)____ 2)____ 3)____ ____ ____ Fri 1)____ 2)____ 3)____ ____ ____ (review the whole week in the Friday 10 minutes) 8. The Friday 10-... Keep e.g. picking today's 3 in five minutes worked three days running, Monday to Wednesday e.g. one line in the evening on why something slipped means no hesitation the next morning Problem e.g. Monday the meeting ran over and 2) the guide outline never got started e.g. Wednesday 1) the invoice check stalled waiting for their file and sat there until Friday Try e.g. on days with a meeting, cut today's 3 down to two e.g. anything estimated over 60 minutes gets split into two 30-minute slots first One item is too big. Split it until you could start in 15 minutes e.g. Close the books -> List the five documents you need Today holds three, no more. A fourth goes back to this week Put the time for important but not urgent work into your calendar first e.g. every morning 9 to 10 is fixed as guide-writing time Interruptions go into the frame on board 1 and are not started that day Move each Try from board 8 straight into this week on board 4 Even after three days off, restart from the Friday 10 minutes on board 8 e.g. in a week with two Keeps written, do not change the loop next week
100%

Drag to move, scroll to zoom

Task board contents

Brain-dumped 16 items

Brain-dump it all
Set your priorities
Pick 3 for today
Make it a routine
Empty your head
Check blind spots
One line per task
Sort on the matrix
Block the time
Pick one to drop
Choose 3 in 5 min
Estimate the time
Review for 5 min
Log it every day
Note why it slipped
Decide next week

Today's 3 0 items

This week 0 items

Waiting on others 0 items

Done 0 items