When you put repeating or recurring tasks on autopilot, you free your mind for more important matters.
We all face routine tasks to maintain our home, and most jobs involve regular duties that must be completed. It’s important to have a method for them to pop up on your radar to deal with them, without cluttering up your to do list.
What are the tasks that you must accomplish on a regular basis at work and at home? Identify the repeating tasks that must be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis at home and work. Time yourself as you perform the tasks for an estimated time, and note if the task is best performed at a certain time or place, if peak time or a tool is needed, etc.
Download a one page form with daily, weekly, monthly and annual repeating tasks. Include things you want to remember to always do today, and activities to make positive shift happen.
You can also just use a repeating task checklist. A Repeating Tasks Worksheet is available at the Daily PlanIt Shop. Another alternative is to use separate lists according to frequency:
- Daily Routine – Daily Plan Form or a Time log from Right Attitudes
- Weekly Routine – Weekly Repeating Tasks (pdf) or a Weekly Planner from Vertex42.com
- Monthly – Monthly Repeating Tasks (pdf)
- Annual – Annual Repeating Tasks (pdf)
Monthly repeating tasks may be financial, goals, or for work or home. You may want to include some Master Tasks-the most important tasks that add value if you do them. See Before you create a To-Do List at Michael Hyatt.
See also the Annual Review Metrics form at An Annual Review.
Tips for dealing with repeating tasks: Use checklists, have a system for handling them, use a tickler file, include them in your daily routine.
Printable
@Work: check job description or O*Net
@Home: Printable Cleaning Checklist. See Also Cleaning Checklists at Household Notebook
Automate:
High-Tech
- Schedule repeating tasks in Google Calendar, for automatic reminders on your computer and/or smart phone.
- Set recurring tasks in your To-do app, or keep a separate to-do list of repeating tasks. Learn more about how I manage tasks with the Daily PlanIt Keep It Super Simple (K.I.S.S) System and an inside look at my system and workspace.
- If you use Evernote for lists, see this article from highperformance on How to Set Up Evernote Reminders.
Low-Tech
- Portable GTD mini system, Calendar & Tickler File
- GTD analog tools listed at Zen Habits Massive GTD Resource List
- More Cleaning Checklists
- Menu Planning
- free printable planner inserts at Free Tools.
More Reading: repeating tasks at the Daily PlanIt Wiki
Routines at Zen Habits, Top 10 Hacks for Automating Your Life at Lifehacker.com, How to Use Your Calendar and 5 ways you can automate your life and save time at Asian Efficiency (they also have a 5 day automation challenge)
This is one of the weekly activities for a Year of Personal Development.
I seek to create order from the chaos of complex information. Join me at the Daily PlanIt to gain insights, inspiration, and information to increase skills for a better life. I unlock the power of teaching reading with phonics in the pursuit of literacy at www.phonicspow.com. In my spare time I explore books and movies, often choosing titles available on both screen and page.
Daily PlanIt 
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