TGIF.

It's a good thing that it is finally Friday - somehow, this week feels like it's been chock-full of activities of all different sorts.

Which it probably does because yes, it was chock-full of activities. Remember that to-do-list thingie I posted about last week? (In case you did not, here's a blogpost elsewhere that nicely explains it.) I'm still using it, and for the first time in ages I am not feeling only daunted by a very long list of things I have to keep track of and have to keep care of. Instead, I have been getting a sense of achievement by getting stuff done - some (relatively few, though) of my to-dos from the huge list have been dealt with (though most have led to more items being added in turn). What, to me, is even better: I have managed very well to get my "dailies" done. Dailies are small tasks that you set yourself for daily repetition, such as "sort books on shelf for 10 min".

Which means there has been noticeable progress in the sorting of the library (aka the bookshelf behind me). Noticeable progress in looking through a very old bookmark list. And very noticeable progress in me sticking to doing at least some shoulder and neck exercises to keep those computer-work tensions at bay. Keeping track of these little things and motivating myself to do a small bit every day, nibbling away at very large and time-consuming tasks, is something that I have been remarkably bad at in the past. Sticking with doing ten minutes of book sorting (and entering book titles into the database) for more than one week? That, for me, is really very good.

So this little to-do list tool has really done something for my productivity, and it has passed the first test: it has been in use for one week (actually more than that) and I haven't fallen off yet. In fact, I'm still very happy with it. And feeling very motivated. (And I have a goodly list of tasks to take over for the current daily tasks once those books and bookmarks have been sorted. Like going through my main bookmark list... which is, regrettably, not really organised at all.)

Oh, and by the way, here is one of my favourite at-your-desk exercise videos: