The July 4th, Independence Day holiday is almost upon us. Many Americans will be looking forward to some well-deserved time away from work, spending time with the family, having a barbeque in the park or enjoying the neighbourhood firework display. As easy as it is to become distracted with excitement, beware of leaving behind a trail of unfinished tasks as you run out the door; they’ll still be there to greet you on your return.
If you want to switch off from workplace stresses this July 4th, get your to-dos in order before the holiday commences and don’t let a day out of the office force you to fall behind. Even if you’re not lucky enough for time away from work, this is still a great habit to get into to stay on top of your workload. Here’s how to bring order to your weekly tasks using iMindMap…
Mind Maps are the perfect tool for planning and organising your weekly to-do list, however big or small. It will take less than ten minutes to draw up a quick Mind Map that will streamline your tasks for the whole working week. In fact, Mind Mapping is proven to increase productivity levels by 20% by giving you a clear overview of the best way forward.
Get started in iMindMap’s Mind Map View. Create a central idea with your deadline date in the middle. Add main branches for the key tasks you need to accomplish this week. Use single keywords or an image per branch to convey actions, deadlines or the names of team members involved, then prioritise your tasks by colour coding each branch. From these main branches, draw child branches to show those extra details that’ll help you to complete your bigger tasks.
One look at your Mind Map will give you a clear perspective of what you need to accomplish. Plus, your Mind Map will preserve the hierarchy and priorities of your tasks. With a bird’s eye view of the relevant information, it’s easy to co-ordinate and reorganise an array of tasks. Look for links between your tasks. Does one task directly impact another? Draw Relationship Arrows to demonstrate this. As you build your Mind Map, you can gain a clear picture of your workload and view each task objectively. You can determine what’s important and what’s a ‘nice to have’, then block out your time accordingly factoring in any time out of the office.
Once you are ready to put your to-dos into action, switch to the Time Map View and watch as your branches convert to tasks. Use Milestones to group related sub-tasks together, and break your weekly task list down into achievable chunks. With Task Connectors you can highlight the relationship between tasks and easily spot the order in which they should be completed. Time Map View’s Current Time Indicator and Task Status System notify you of tasks that are falling behind schedule, helping to keep your week on track. With your to-dos under control in a flexible action plan, you can follow your Time Map for a direct route to a stress-free July 4th break.
Get your work in order and stay ahead of the game. Open up iMindMap and set out all of your personal and professional to-dos ready for action. iMindMap will help you maintain focus so you can get your work done faster, and feel less disrupted by the July 4th break. When it comes around, you can spend time away from the office with confidence that you’ve completed all that needed to be done, and enjoy the carefree Independence Day that you deserve.
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