Have you ever heard of the 1-3-5 technique?
Well the gist is that, when you make up your to-do list each day, you include:
- 1 large task.
- 3 medium-sized tasks.
- 5 small tasks.
I’ve come across this method (and many variations) several times. And, while I’d used it with success, it didn’t really stick with me.
Then I came across a post that changed my perspective on this technique. Now, not only do I use it successfully, I actually *enjoy* using it. And the time management techniques you actually enjoy using are the ones most like to help you get more done.
The post was written by Monica Leonelle, a fiction writer who has made a hobby (or so it seems) out of finding ways to increase her productivity, and get more writing done. She’s written several books, blog posts and articles on the subject, most of them geared specifically towards helping writers become more productive.
But you don’t have to be a writer to use her techniques. Or appreciate her perspective on time management.
In a blog post called The Simplest Way I’ve Found to Get More Writing Done, Leonelle explain how she uses the 1-3-5 technique, along with the Pomodoro Method, to get stuff done.
Every morning, she draws a grid on a 4-inch X 6-inch index card. The grid consists of 9 boxes of various sizes.
- In the biggest box, she writes a big task that will take up to two hours (or four Pomodoros) to complete.
- In the three medium-sized boxes, she writes tasks that will take about twenty-five minutes (or one Pomodoro each) to complete.
- The five small boxes are for those small, 5-minute tasks that need to get done but can fall through the cracks on a busy day.
Her goal for the day is to complete those nine tasks (five of which will only take five minutes). And that’s it. Once those tasks are done, she calls it a day and puts a check-mark in the “win” column.
Like I said above, I’ve seen versions of this technique before. But, for some reason, Leonelle’s explanation of it made the technique appeal to me in a way it really hadn’t before. Maybe the grid appeals to my artistic side. Or maybe it’s the way she explained the method that did the trick. Or maybe it's because she combined it with the Pomodoro Method, a time management technique I'm very familiar with (no surprise considering how much I use it) that I know works.
Whatever the reason, I started using her technique the day I found the article. In fact, I’d barely finished reading it before I was drawing up my own “to-do grid.” And I was thrilled by how well my to-do grid actually worked.
If you’re getting a little bored with your daily to-do list, give this fun alternative a try.
