“God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” – US cartoonist Bill Watterson.

My dad had this quote pinned to his noticeboard for years. He’s 91 years old, and I’m holding him to it. I am my father’s daughter. I would be brilliant at time management if I had fewer things to do. Just imagine having a daily to do list with just eight hours worth of tasks on it. Luxury.

But see, that’s rather the point of time management. Working out at the beginning of the day that you’re on a hiding to nothing can prevent you from collapsing in an overworked heap at the end of it. If you have more than eight hours of work on your to-do-today list, you need to delegate, defer or delete stuff. Holds head and groans. I’m just finding this out now?

Time management in our work as funeral directors is a whole lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Time pressure and time poverty are our reality, yet we are often at a loss to know what to do about them. All complicated by the unpredictability of work. But no matter how good you are, you can only do one thing at a time.

I used to call my to-do list my to-don’t list, because there were so many things on it I would end up paralysed by inactivity. Then I discovered an app called Todoist (www.todoist.com) which allowed me to have multiple nested to do lists, yet stay focused on what needed to be done. It allowed me to peek at the small picture, without getting overwhelmed by the big one. I even wrote about it in Funeralcare w-a-a-a-y back in December 2019. It has stood the test of time.

But obviously, it’s only part of getting stuff done, or I’d be spending my weekends walking on the beach, sipping cocktails in the sun and dancing to loud music instead of bashing away on a computer keyboard. Can I find an app that will help me prioritise my list when everything on it is urgent? Preferably without resorting to Gantt charts?

Turns out there are a mind-blowing number of apps out there to help with prioritising, focusing and managing time and projects. Most of them are comprehensive, complex, and offer free trials. And Gantt charts.

What I was looking for though was something free, fullstop. A holy grail so elusive that I was ready to go back to pen and paper. But that would give me nothing to write about now, would it?

Just as I was about to give up, I discovered three free apps that looked like they might help me get my life back: Remember the Milk, Quire and Llama Life.

I first discovered Remember the Milk at the same time I found Todoist. Its inability to handle subtasks in the free version were a deal breaker for me at the time. Its advantage however is the ability to specify not just due dates, but task durations, and start dates. It has a clean and simple interface and shows the total effort required to complete today’s tasks, based on your estimated durations. You can set task priorities, and quickly and easily drag and drop to reprioritise your daily list. Find it at rememberthemilk.com

Quire is a simple to do list which allows you to specify due dates, due times, and priorities. The task view can be easily toggled between list and board view. It is easy to add subtasks in tree view, and to organise tasks by status (to do, in progress, complete for example) in board view. It lacks task durations and an overview of daily effort. Find it at quire.io

Llama Life has a clean, focused and visually satisfying interface, and it sits in a sidebar on your browser. It is very quick to learn, and simple to add tasks and durations. It is easy to track time spent on each task, and display not only the daily effort required but when all tasks would be completed. Using simple click, drag and drop, it told me that I’d finish today’s to-do list at 9:15pm. Well, that was an easy way to work out I had too much to do! I set the duration for my first task “Write Boffin to Coffin article”. An hour later, a timer that I didn’t even know existed went off. And it integrates with Todoist. Happy dance.

It is my pick of the bunch, so easy and effective that you could use it regardless of your roster, and quickly incorporate new tasks when you’re on call. Find it at llamalife.co

I may never miss a deadline again. Here’s to walking along the beach at the weekend!