Maintain - Repair - Explore
While trying to maintain my todo list, I soon realised I was getting lost in routine items that needed to be done, yet I felt a lack of progress towards my goals.
Played with 'budgeting' or time allocating, played with setting deadlines - nothing really worked out for me. And then, eventually (hint: I had a good sleep) I realised that 99% of my todo list could fairly easily be split into these three categories.
Maintain
Items that contribute to my usual lifestyle, such as:
- Restocking groceries
- Cooking regular meals for family
- Hygiene routines - e.g. I have a beard that asks to be trimmed at least every other week
- Bill payments, etc.
Repair
Items that are already a part of my usual lifestyle, yet something is broken or requires a fix. Examples:
- Cleaning a bathroom pipe
- Fixing a dishwasher
- Resolving issues with the internet provider.
The key difference from the previous category is that these items usually tend to imply a short 'deadline' due to adding a hassle to my daily life.
Explore
Items that are not yet a part of my usual lifestyle, but which I would love to try and that (I think) would expand or improve my understanding/enjoyment of life. Examples:
- Trying out a new recipe I feel fancy about
- Purchasing and installing sports equipment for my son
- Investing in (meaningful) IoT sensors for the apartment
- Making an effort to learn a new language
- Finding a lawyer to speed up the naturalisation process in the new country
- Travel plans/visiting exhibitions, etc.
Once I started splitting my TODO into these three categories, I almost immediately realised I'd been focusing too much on 'Maintain' and 'Repair' categories, almost ignoring the 'Explore' one, due to many reasons - the last one is not that obvious and requires more mental and sometimes physical effort.
After a couple of weeks of trying the new approach, I can say that I am now listing mostly 'Repair' and 'Explore' items, tracking their progress meticulously, while 'Maintain' items simply get done without the necessity to track them down.
I googled a bit and found some traces/similarities to the Asset Management Theory (Preventive maintenance / Corrective maintenance / Capital improvements) and to the Systems Thinking Perspectives (Homeostasis: Maintaining equilibrium / Adaptation: Responding to breakdowns / Evolution: Growing and developing new capabilities), yet to the best of my understanding, nobody has really tried to utilise this approach with regard to a simple TODO list. :)
Hope this might be of help to someone.