Hi Sandra here, and I have a question for you. Have you ever tried to drink water from a fire hydrant? I must admit I haven’t tried that (lol) but I can get a clear mental image of what it would be like. So much water pouring out that we are overwhelmed, and we can only take in a small fraction of what is coming our way. This is exactly the feeling Peter and I experienced when we considered all the various tasks to be completed before pick up of Sea Goddess in June.
Here is just a snapshot:
- cull, sort, pack, sell, donate, store all our personal and household possessions;
- find a rental property to live in between house settlement and heading to France;
- sell Sandra’s car;
- purchase a wide range of equipment and resources for Sea Goddess;
- organise a storage facility and transport our ‘keep’ possessions to the facility;
- investigate and organise boat insurance;
- undertake theoretical and practical sail training – check out the list of courses we are scheduled to complete http://seagoddessadventures.com/sail-training/
- a heap of financial, work-related and personal matters; and
- continuing to work our regular jobs.
Managing chaos with Sticky Notes!
Just thinking about all that had to be done was overwhelming, we also knew that being busy in our regular working lives meant there was high potential for things to be forgotten. I love making lists and sub lists, I’m the Queen of Lists! So this was my go to solution – create a book of lists, a list for each category of tasks. Peter put a different spin on this idea by suggesting we use a visual approach, mind mapping, with the use of Sticky Notes (or Post It Notes).
So that’s exactly what we did, creating a raft of Sticky Notes with individual tasks to be completed by the 30th June on each note. Some of the larger tasks were broken down into smaller tasks just to more easily monitor progression towards completion of that task. We then identified a large blank wall space in our kitchen-dining room for placement of the Sticky Notes, but first we needed to prioritise the tasks.
Using four small index cards (you could use whatever card you like), we wrote 1, 2, 3 and Done! on each card. 1 was the highest priority in terms of importance and urgency, 3 being lowest priority and non-urgent. We left some space between Card 3 and Done! – here we placed tasks that were in progress and took particular notice of how these activities were tracking.
We decided not to dispose of Sticky Notes on completion of each task, preferring to transfer these under the Done! index card. It has given us a great sense of satisfaction to see the number of Sticky Notes grow in the ‘Done’ section. As new tasks emerged we added to our initial pack of Sticky Notes, so the process is ever evolving.
This task management strategy while simple in its form and execution has been remarkedly successful – keeping us on track and ensuring activities do not get lost or forgotten amongst the busy-ness of our daily lives. Some would suggest that using an electronic task function would work just as well, and I agree that this is a viable option. I guess the reason this strategy has been so successful for us is that it is right there in our face at several points in time every day, in fact every time we sit down for a meal. We have a bit of a reconnaissance and check out the Sticky Note wall at least every second day – looking to see where tasks are at, what’s been completed, what needs to be started.
The decision to purchase a catamaran overseas, fit out the catamaran with all the necessary equipment and resources for an ocean passage, sail it to your home port, and swapping your land-based life to one permanently living aboard is a huge undertaking. Developing a system to identify and manage all the various components associated with such a massive change is crucial. We used and continue to use the humble Sticky Note, and its working brilliantly.
If you’ve adopted or tried a different approach, we would love to hear about it. Drop us a line or two at http://seagoddessadventures.com/contact-us/