I am severely ill, and am my own task and care manager. It is very hard work. But I live alone and don’t have anyone else to fill those roles. In order to make things work the best I know how, I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy into exploring, trying and iterating systems to make things work as reliably as they can with the least amount of work.
Not all systems work for all people. We all have different kinds of brains. But I’ve worked hard to develop my current system, and I’m sharing in case something in it is useful to someone else. Most of my systems are heavily reliant on my cell phone, for better or worse. That’s challenging on days I would rather just leave my phone off. But the tradeoff seems worth it to me. I use features like do not disturb, turning my ringer to silent, and focus mode with blocked apps to make that more ok.
Quick Jump
Calendars
I use three calendars that are displayed together as one on my Google calendar.
The first is the main calendar that I use to schedule appointments, webinars, events, etc. And is also where I store people’s birthday information. I suspect I don’t do this much differently than anyone else, with the exception that I also schedule pacing on it. For example, if I have a small event I’m trying to leave the house for, in addition to the event itself, all my rest days before and after will also be blocked off on my calendar. That way I can’t accidentally schedule more than I can do.
The second calendar is my care schedule. It is set up with a different Google account, which is what I primarily use to interact with caregivers and candidates. I schedule shifts there. Color coded, and if the caregiver uses Google Calendar I invite them to the events. That way we’re all on the same page.
The third is from an external source that is set up to import and synch twice a day, and that is the schedule for my pet care volunteers. They are managed through signup.com, and can add and remove themselves from shifts as they need to. By synching that to my calendar I don’t risk missing that something has changed. And I can always log into that calendar directly for real time status if it hasn’t updated yet.
Again, this might sound complicated, but the result appears very simply to me:
Salmon are my commitments.
Yellow is my pet care shifts (and where they are missing the shift still needs to be filled.
Green are my care provider shifts.
Tasks
For a long time I managed my lists on paper, and sometimes I still do. But more often I manage them with Todoist.
From a practical perspective, I manage two projects, and I manage them entirely separately from each other. They each generate separate list widgets I can view and manage from the home screen on my phone, in addition to opening the app or the website.
The first is my personal task list, currently called “Side Quests” (I’m an only child, I entertain myself). Anything that I need to execute goes on there. Return an email, mail a card, make a doctor’s appointment, find someone to run an errand. It’s on the list.
Todoist is pretty robust in terms of being able to set and change dates, times, recurrence, subtasks, notes, etc. It also allows you to invite another person to join a project and to assign tasks to them. That’s how I handle my second project, Care Tasks.
Care Tasks I share with my caregiver. She downloaded a copy of the app. I invited her to my project. She can see everything in the project, add things, add notes, check things off as complete, etc.
I have recurrent tasks scheduled like empty the dehumidifier every shift, make a grocery list every Monday. I have tasks that are scheduled as recurrent, but I move them sometimes, like changing and washing the bedding. If my assistant wasn’t able to bring the towels up from the dryer on her shift, she can just add a note to let me know they are still in the dryer. I can plan ahead by scheduling a shower on a certain day with a note that I have a haircut the day after, and set it with a high priority level.
My assistant enjoys the satisfaction of checking things off. And appreciates getting a sense in advance of what is likely on her plate. And we both appreciate the transparency and knowing we’re on the same page.
Reminders
I think of reminders as a totally different category. These are mostly things that someone with more cognitive capacity, executive function, memory and neurotypical alignment might well just do as a matter of routine. I can’t trust that, so I program an app instead.
For this I use an Android app called Reminder.
It has pretty robust scheduling and recurrence features. And I often get 15-20 reminders a day for things like medicating myself, medicating my dog, meditating, turning on and off the alert light I use to let people know when I’m asleep, sending my shopper my grocery list.
The number one key for me is to never, ever dismiss the reminder until I have done the thing. I can sweep it up into the tray if I’m in the middle of something. But the icon is on the top of my screen with the reminder in my pull down until I complete it. There’s also a snooze function for folks who are so inclined.
Scheduled Texts
There’s one other thing that I do to help others help me.
Me: Hey Laura! Could you bring me your spare nut pick on your next shift?
Laura: Sure! Can you remind me?
Me: When would you like that?
Laura: Like 5:00 on Wednesday?
Me: You got it.
And right there and then I type a reminder text to Laura and schedule it for Wednesday at 5.
I know there are folks who don’t have or use text scheduling, but I can’t manage my life without it.
Another example is if I want to ask someone a question but it’s likely a bad time. Instead of having to remind myself to ask them later, I just write the text and schedule it for a better time.
I also do this with my dog walkers when I know I might be asleep during their shift. If they need to know something or I need them to do something different, I just schedule the text to land 15 minutes or so before I think they will be headed my way.
Snoozed Email
The last task management tool here is the snooze feature in Gmail. I sign up for or schedule things that come with email confirmations and follow up information. Sometimes those things are short and I just copy them into the calendar item and move on. For other things, I tell Gmail to snooze the email until the day before the event. Then it pops back up at the top of my inbox on the right day and I don’t have to search for it.