I’m working on a system for managing my tasks at work.
Side note: Spending hours creating, re-creating, testing, tweaking, improving and changing processes and systems for managing tasks is one of my favorite hobbies (or toxic ADHD traits depending on how you look at it).
I was about to title my brain dump of tasks “Master Task List.” And then I immediately felt & thought YUCK. Nope, that’s not cool.
I read a few articles months ago on the topic of changing language with roots in racism, and the need to do so keeps popping up for me. The more I pay attention, the more I’m becoming aware of how pervasive roots of racism are in our culture. I was floored recently after hearing a manager use the term “pow wow” in such a nonchalant way in a meeting. I froze in the moment and got so lost in my mind (Did he just say that?) that I absolutely missed the opportunity to question what he said. I believe that if If I just listen to racist comments (intentional or not) and let it be, I’m really drawing a line at my own convenience for progress. So I had the conversation with him. It was just as awkward as I thought it would be, but he didn’t get defensive. He didn’t even remember saying it, which goes to show the lack of awareness many of us still have. Next time, I’ll have the courage to say something in the moment.
Back to my task at hand…It’s challenging to change my go-to words and phrases in an attempt to do better as a human. I believe language matters. I’m sure I’ll share more on the topic in the future, but for now — time to brainstorm some alternatives for brain dump of task lists:
- Main Task List
- Primary Task List
- Umbrella Task List
- Primary Task List
- Running Task List
- Central Task List
- Outstanding Task List
For now, I’m going to use “Running Task List” as that’s what I’ve created, but who knows. Sidenote: I just spent an hour reading things I’ve read before about ways to manage a to-do list.
Sources I read, scanned or was inspired from:
- 10 Phrases to Stop Saying at Work – by Elior Moskowitz
- Tech Confronts its use of the labels ‘Master’ and ‘Slave‘ – by Elizabeth Landau
- Groups in wine, real estate, and technology have scrapped the word ‘master” from their standard lingo – by Ellen Cranley