# 9 - WORK improvement - Monitoring System

SIMPLE & CHEAP, YET EFFECTIVE MONITORING SYSTEM

Today I improved on a system which I've used for quite some time.

For the past few years I've been writing and updating my TO DO list on a spreadsheet, consisting of two main columns :

1) the OUT OF OFFICE to do

2) the IN OFFICE to do

So far this system has been working OK. I would copy yesterday's To Do worksheet into a new worksheet, clear the completed tasks and key-in new tasks. Then at the end of the day I threw the paper away. What a waste!

So whilst thinking on what to improve today, I thought of improving this system. Basically I maintain the layout as above (coz it works OK for now).

What's new is that after I've updated the tasks for today and printed it out, I would.....

1) Fold-in both Left and Right margins (about 2cm each side)

2) Fold into half vertically the whole A4

3) Fold into half again horizontally

4) Hence I have 4 empty spaces to record these 4 EXTRA headings :

i) My Spending for Today

ii) My Journey (for toll&claim&sales report purposes) for Today

iii) My Improvement for Today

iv) My ETC for Today

5) This folded paper then is placed in my shirt's pocket which is easy to reach

6) The To Do Page is ready for filing for future references

Now I wonder, if I were to own a PDA, would I still use this system? Only time will tell.....

UPDATE : 20 Apr 2011

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Without realising it, I've been using this monitoring system for YEARS now!

I've got a PDA but still using this system (with a few modifications...) because I got so used to it.

Have been improving it bit by bit everyday.

And today I made another improvement - giving each field of to do list a CODE so that I could write the CODE on each To Do paper/document, for easy monitoring and reference later on.

So now it looks like this...