List Wish

December. During this last month of the year, it’s natural to look back and reflect on what we can improve upon in our lives and work. One item that frequently pops up is time management. Over the next few weeks we’ll look at ways to become more efficient and organized.

 

It’s something we all confront during this busy, commitment-filled time of year: trying to fit a seemingly infinite number of tasks into an uncompromisingly finite calendar. To the rescue comes the list, the perennially powerful yet simple organizational tool that allows us to break down large, complex processes into doable steps.

 

While the season’s most renowned list-maker—a certain Mr. Claus, who famously checks his work not once, but twice—may rely on the traditional paper and pen to keep track of his appointments, there are plenty of higher-tech methods to manage schedules and projects. Each uses a different approach to creating content.

 

1. Write a List

This collection of Moleskine notebooks bridges the analog and digital worlds. Using a Livescribe3 smartpen and the Livescribe+ app, handwritten notes—printed or cursive—are transmitted to tablets and smartphones, where they can be transformed into editable text simply by tapping on the screen of the device.

 

2. Picture a List

Architects, designers, and others who work in visually-oriented fields might find the ultra-intuitive Trello a particularly helpful tool. Photos and drawings are easily incorporated into decks of digital cards that can be stacked, shifted, and shared among team members.

 

3. Type a List

Wunderlist, the organizer of choice for Hausman LLC, is a nimble, communication-centric platform that can schedule reminders, set deadlines, coordinate actions, and more across all operating systems, for mobile and desktop environments.

 

4. Dictate a List

Too busy to put pencil to paper or finger to keyboard? The speech-recognition Dragon Dictation app enables fast, hands-free text input. Transcriptions can be posted to social media, sent as text messages or email, or pasted into editing software.