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Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

At work I have a whiteboard on which I write down every task I need to finish. Next to every task I write a small square which I put a green check mark in once the task is complete. I don't erase the whiteboard until I really need extra space so I can see how many tasks I have finished recently. It helps me focus.

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at one point i had filled my office with whiteboards. it was really helpful to have a non-technical reminder of what needed to be done and what i accomplished. when the whiteboard was full, i expanded to the next one. (only half joking. actually i rewrote the accomplishments into a more condensed form, removing unimportant details, different whiteboards were actually for different projects)

but actually i think sticky notes would have been more efficient. you can collect them in the done column, letting them pile up to show you how far you have come.

I make a grid of squares to supplement my todo list. For each item on my todo list that I complete I fill in a square on the page. It's a great way of visualizing how much stuff you're getting done and it can be a surprisingly good motivator. You can even get fancier and arrange the page so that each square corresponds to a day on a calendar grid but then you need to come up with some criteria on what deserves a checkmark since you only get one.

Yup, i used to do this on my notebook. I've swapped to using my own tool now

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