Ask HN: How to Stay Organized?
Somehow I’ve been productive and creative at work so far but I’m terrible at managing multiple workstreams.
What tools do you use that help you stay organized across multiple workstreams??
What tools do you use that help you stay organized across multiple workstreams??
Each morning, I copy the unfinished tasks to the new page. It means that I must acknowledge and reprioritise each of them. Every task is either done, discarded or copied over.
The page is a physical limitation to how much work I can take. It's a reminder of my own limits. I also need to re-read the list every few minutes to find an item.
With this simple system, things rarely got misplaced. Not even little things like updating tickets or answering specific emails.
I just write stuff on paper, and write the date at the top of the page.
Realistically, there's no point in having a very long list of items you will never go through.
The computer can make a mess of organization simply because it's too easy to hide away everything and the system will oftentimes impose the method on you. Notes and documentation can help. Make a habit of daily self-talk, a "standup meeting for one" when you have a break. The exercise of speaking it aloud jogs the memory and creates a form of engagement that isn't had by thinking it or writing it. If done habitually you won't have to physically record much, because your priorities will remain stable day by day.
Absolutely right! The same concept applies (from behavioural psychology) to workspaces as a whole; eg. Do your work in a "study room" and not in a "bed room". Keep spatial spaces and their functionalities separate and your brain will automatically "switch modes" when you move from one to another.
From the "tactics" point of view, the two biggest game changers for me have been quick capture and weekly review. A la David Allen's "Getting Things Done" or "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (both absolute game changer books for me).
Whenever _any_ thought of something I should/need to do enters my head, I write it down in Trello on my phone. You could use the notes app, I just got used to Trello. This could be anything from a Youtube video idea, to needing to pick up paper towels from the super market.
Every Sunday I take everything from Trello and schedule it out into blocks of time into my Google Calendar. During the week I just execute whatever's in my calendar. Some of that is meetings, some of that is focused work blocks, I'll even have "Date with Girlfriend" or "Watch Rick and Morty" in my calendar. I've found scheduling out the "fun" stuff is just as important as scheduling out the "career" stuff, especially if you tend towards workaholism like I unfortunately do.
This means during the week I'm never thinking of what to do next. I just do whatever's on my calendar. If any thoughts come up I write them down, and the cycle repeats every week.
Tools don't matter in this example. Honestly, I'd be more "organized" if I cut out Trello and just wrote it in Notion since I use Notion for work more often, but I'm just so used to quick capturing with Trello I keep doing it. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
I kind of get where you’re coming from, but it was still one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read, by a mile. Not just for “working effectively” either, it’s really a book about living a good, balanced, purposeful life.
Also I would encourage people to listen to at least one of Stephen Covey’s narrated audiobooks (7 Habits or First Things First). The guy was full of wisdom, authenticity and compassion, and you can hear it in his voice. Not to mention the subject matter (in my opinion) is solid gold.
Yes his books were a bit wordy but they’re still very much worth a read (or listen) IMHO.
Try to list all the things I need to do across all my tasks and areas of responsibility, and check them throughout the day. If I didn't get around to something I copy it the following day to the next list. Simple stuff.
1) Write down the things to do and the ideas.
2) taking time to organise, prioritise and plan.
With special emphasis on step 2, it can be one hour before starting work and half an hour before finishing or another solution, but this activity is crucial.
[0] OK, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them.
Write the one main thing you want to get done the following day, at the end of the current day.
Don’t try to do lots of different things.
Use a paper notebook.
- todo apps have stuff that can happen at any time, some might have a deadline, but I can do them sooner if I want to
- entries in calendar represent fixed events in time - e.g. a meeting, interview
I have a set of task lists grouped by topic (e.g. "recruitment", "house chores", "reading list"); each task has a description and some sort of completeness criteria.
Then I have a weekly and daily lists - at the beginning of the week I take selected tasks from the various lists I need to complete this particular week and transfer to the weekly list. I pick at most 3 most important ones to complete.
Every day after I wake up I take a look at my calendar and the weekly tasks list, and decide what can and needs to be done this day, and transfer tasks from the weekly list to a daily list. Again I select at most 3 most important tasks.
During the day I try to block off some time for doing this stuff by having focus blocks in my calendar - e.g. I spend 30m on reviewing CVs, or 1h reviewing the backlog of my team - during this time I disable all but the most critical notifications and try to get stuff completed. After each block I gather all the things people want from me, and put it on the appropriate list.
After each day and week I review if I'm happy with what I've done, and how I can improve it - for instance recently I noticed that some of my task descriptions were quite vague and did not have completeness criteria, so I'm trying to improve on that.
That being said:
- don't try shaming yourself if you can't complete stuff - there was a reason why it wasn't completed, try to figure out what it was and how to deal with it in the future - making yourself feel miserable doesn't solve any problems
- use a process you find to suit you, don't be afraid of adjusting it
- try making this stuff a habit - this way fewer things slip by
- don't try to be a robot - I won't put every single thing in my life on the task list - although most work-related stuff does go through it
I've been fiddling with this for about a year, and it seems to be working mostly OK - there is some room for improvement, but I'm not as predictable as computers are, do it's difficult to nail what specific actions I need to take.
I have no relationship with that startup (other than being a user).