* What tools do you use on the daily ? * Do you follow a particular methodology (kanban, sprints etc) * How do you split your time between new features / bug fixes / tech debt ? * Any unexpected hacks that have helped you stay focused and productive? * How do you keep track of tasks, todos etc
Everything else is a bit chaotic because there is so much to do. In the morning I take care of any customer communication that happened overnight, and always prioritize taking care of the customers first throughout the day. That way nothing is forgotten and if you answer customers quickly you can usually resolve matters quickly instead of them dragging on for multiple days.
For features, I prioritize anything that is blocking my sales pipeline, then features that were requested by customers, and after both of those are taken care of I focus on the larger long-term projects.
If there is any time left over, that is where the marketing takes place. This usually only happens once or twice a year for a day. Not saying it's right, but it is the reality. I always have big plans for marketing, but just need to get that new large system pushed first to really tie the messaging together.
Now I keep things simple as possible:
* Heavy use of Notes and Calendar, so that everything stays synced across devices. Using hashtags helps me find stuff, rather than trying to keep things organized in folders.
* Planning & vision board type stuff gets done in FreeForm. Organizing things spatially helps me know where to find and put stuff.
There are more powerful tools out there... But keeping things simple, consistent, interoperable and in one cloud is what I personally prefer.
> How do you keep track of tasks, todos etc
I have a pinned Note which I use every day for minor tasks. If something is critical then I either try to do it immediately, or add it as an event in Calendar with multiple alarms.
> Any unexpected hacks that have helped you stay focused and productive?
Body doubling can be effective when you're really stuck. There are a lot of free options for this, but if you want to try a session just to see what it's like I recommend Flow Club [0].
And, maybe weirder again, niacinamide. A high dose of this wipes out brain fog (for me) for like an hour or two. It's very cheap and pretty safe so I recommend looking into it.
1)Tools: Notion for planning, Ahrefs for SEO, Trello for outreach, Google Calendar for scheduling.
2) Method: Kanban for tasks + weekly sprints to stay on track. Time Split: 40% content & outreach, 30% engaging on sites, 20% backlinks, 10% analytics.
3) Hacks: Batch outreach, use templates, automate reports.
4) Tracking: ‘Today, This Week, This Month’ lists keep everything in check.
Apart from my main work, I also write on LinkedIn regularly and plan my content weekly to stay consistent.
Getting up on time was the hardest thing. No jest.
I solved this by ensuring I had to get up for some exercise. More exercise later in the day guaranteed by night come I was tired enough to get to sleep easily enough, get regular sleep, and complete the virtuous cycle.
The rest took care of itself.
- Fix bugs first, then work on features/tech debt
- Daft Punk's Alive 2007 album and a crap ton of coffee
- see first point
- plaintext (vCard) and org files for CRM and opportunity management (with lots of Elisp to find information, GDPR-compliance, ...)
- mu4e for email
- ledger for finances
- org-mode for calendar, project management and time-tracking
- org-mode for task management (I have one big TODO list sorted by priority, every task gets an estimate number from 1..10 for required effort and importance, from which a priority is calculated; I never think about what to do next, but just work through the list from top to bottom)
- Elisp for rapid prototyping and exploring a problem space
- org-mode, org-babel and lsp-mode for development & documentation
- magit for version control
- LuaLaTeX templates for invoices, letters and other document-form communication (Emacs replaces placeholders with values, then generates a PDF)
Side note: I heavily reshaped org-mode for my needs, for example redefining internal functions and a lot of other hacks. I love Emacs for giving me this freedom and flexibility.
The PROPERTIES drawer for org headings is also great to store custom IDs. This way you can link stuff across multiple files and folders.