Have you ever thought that some tasks just don’t ever seem to get done until the last minute. Or, there never seems to be enough time to fit all of the things you need to do into a day, week or month?
Well, you need to try the SCRUM methodology on setting a task list, placing the tasks on your SCRUM board and attacking the hell out of each list.
A set of tasks have to be in a given time frame; this is called the sprint. The sprint can be a day, a few days, a week or a month. I recommend a week sprint to start with. You have 4 columns: Backlog, To do, Doing and Done.
- Set out all the tasks for your weekly sprint and write them on post-it notes. Break up larger tasks into smaller manageable chunks. Place these post-it notes in the ‘To do’ column.
- One post-it note can move to the ‘Doing’ column at any time. It can’t go back into the ‘To do’ column; it can only move to the right, which is the ‘Done’ column.
- Even if you don’t complete that task in your window of time in any given sitting, you have to keep on that task until it is in the ‘Done’ column.
- Once you have completed one task you move the next one across to the “Doing’ column.
- Keep going until you have completed all the weekly sprint tasks.
- Any tasks that you think of or that comes in, during the current sprint, place them on post-it notes and place them in the ‘Backlog’ column. This will be the growing list that will help to set the next sprint of work.
It gives you a set goal each week and a nice achievement when you have completed all the tasks super early. If you find one task not getting tackled you have to ask ‘why’? Then remove that barrier and get on that task ‘Done!’.
Here is a short video to explain it visually.
Hope this helps a lot.
Posted by:
Daniel Watson
4th Year BDS – Clinical editor
