Changing my life with Wunderlist. Sort of.

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for ages and was prompted to get on with it by a chat with my friend Siobhan on Twitter yesterday.

I’ve always been a fan of the To Do list. Some days I’m so addled in the morning that I find myself writing “Keris breakfast. Harry breakfast. Joe breakfast. Keris dressed. Harry dressed. Joe dressed” for the joy of ticking them off. And okay, yes, to remind me what absolutely has to be done when I find myself standing in the kitchen, making another cup of tea, staring into space (or at Twitter).

For ages I had a running To Do list on my desktop with a list of everything I needed to do during the week. Then I separated it into days and shuffled them about accordingly.

But then my friend Erin mentioned Wunderlist and, well, it’s been a revelation. The great thing about it is that it’s multi-platform, so you can sync your To Do lists via various tech wotnots (technical term). I use it on my desktop and email to it from my BlackBerry. There is a BlackBerry app, but I haven’t downloaded it yet, because downloading apps on the BlackBerry usually ends with me throwing my phone against the wall, yelling, “OHMYGODWHYDIDN’TIGETANiPHONE?!”

So. That’s the general gubbins. Here comes the science bit. Here’s how I use it. I have a list for every day. And onto the daily list I put, you know, stuff I need to do every day: Bea, UKYA, my blog, write 1000 words, check my in-tray, etc. I’ve also added housework. I know. So Monday has ‘tidy/clean office’, Tuesday ‘tidy/clean lounge’, Wednesday ‘tidy/clean kitchen’. You get the drift. I’ve added cleaning to my To Do list before, of course I have, but for some reason, this time it’s actually working. I seem to have tricked my brain that if it’s on my Wunderlist, it must be done. It’s amazing. We’ve been in this house for 8 years next month and, honestly, this is the first time I could actually describe it as clean.*

* Apart from the kitchen floor. If anyone knows of a quick and easy way to clean a kitchen floor then please tell me. Our kitchen is absolutely tiny, the floor is almost always rotten, but I just can’t bring myself to clean it.