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Thirty percent of your cerebral cortex is dedicated to visual processing. What does that mean? It means that adding visuals to blocks of writing helps your brain understand better.
Enter: Time Circles
This simple and powerful idea is taken from Marydee Sklar's "Seeing My Time" course. Here's how it works:
Why does this work?
Here's a sample to-do list:
Enter: Time Circles
This simple and powerful idea is taken from Marydee Sklar's "Seeing My Time" course. Here's how it works:
- Next to each item on today's to-do list, draw a circle and colour in the amount of time you think the task will take. A full circle is one hour. A half circle is 30 minutes. You can even fill in a tiny segment for a 5-minute task.
- If one task will take days, break it up in to smaller chunks so you can focus on what you need to get done today.
- If a task will take several hours, draw a series of half-hour chunks. For example, a 2-hour task can be represented by 4 half-hour time circles. After each half hour of work, you can cross off one of your half-hour circles.
Why does this work?
- Your brain loves to make predictions. Estimating the time primes your brain to work. (Plus if your prediction is way off, you can plan better for the task next time.)
- Take advantage of dopamine. Don't you love that feeling of crossing something off your list? That's your brain releasing dopamine! Breaking large tasks into smaller ones lets you give your brain a hit of dopamine every time you complete a chunk of work. That, in turn, can help you to stay focussed.
- Knock off small tasks. Sometimes you'll find yourself with an empty few minutes in your day. With a visual list, you can spot the 5-10–minute tasks and get them done in the unexpected gaps. These tasks can also get done when you're in a low-energy period of your day.
Here's a sample to-do list:
Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen.