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Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#11

Post by dboreham »

feifan wrote: post #9

My entire productivity system is a checklist in a pocket-sized notebook. When I get to work, I write down the things I need to do, have been asked to do, and want to do (in that order) — most days it's 3–5 things. Each item is a specific task that I know how to do. This system, if you can even call it that, works for me for two reasons: 1) It gets the thoughts out of my head, so I don't have a constant "background no…

Problem with a book (there are many benefits of course) is : you lose the book.

So I have a strict policy these days of only taking notes either on a piece of paper that sits on my desk, or in electronic form synced to all my devices (using OneNote fwiw but document files in Google Drive would probably work just as well).

I also have around 20 notebooks scattered around the house, office, car, friends's houses, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#12

Post by tzhenghao »

There's a good archive of Marc Andreessen's blog posts here:

http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html

One section is dedicated to his general process on checklists, which I find extremely interesting and have started seeing my increased productivity since adopting it a few months ago.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#13

Post by alexpetralia »

subvocalize wrote: post #8

I use a lot of checklists, mostly via emacs org-mode. Here's an example of my daily sales workflow (B2B SaaS; formatting didn't survive very well, sorry): * Daily work DONE Check commission goal for EOY and update DONE Start airtable timing DONE Log in to TalkDesk (reboot, make sure active) DONE Sales startup * DONE select rotating priority of the day, tag with dailyFocus * DONE check calendar for any major events un…

Interesting how much of this is strategic vs. operational.

Can you elaborate on this?

> Create jump discontinuities for future

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#15

Post by damontal »

I've gone from checklists to a Kanban (for daily work tasks) in MS OneNote using a variation of this https://www.highmonkey.com/Blog/February-2013/OneNote-Kanban...

In addition to a backlog table I have a Waiting and a Someday table to capture things that are out there but not actionable yet.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#16

Post by subvocalize »

alexpetralia wrote: post #13
subvocalize wrote: post #8

I use a lot of checklists, mostly via emacs org-mode. Here's an example of my daily sales workflow (B2B SaaS; formatting didn't survive very well, sorry): * Daily work DONE Check commission goal for EOY and update DONE Start airtable timing DONE Log in to TalkDesk (reboot, make sure active) DONE Sales startup * DONE select rotating priority of the day, tag with dailyFocus * DONE check calendar for any major events un…

Interesting how much of this is strategic vs. operational. Can you elaborate on this? > Create jump discontinuities for future

This is a very operationally-focused list, since it's meant to be a guide for what to do next in "triage" modes. I almost never reach the bottom.

During this operationally-focused mode, I don't let myself innovate too much, though I'll take down notes with ideas. The "jump discontinuities" would be things like making a common sequence of responses into an autoresponder, outsourcing a common research task, or making a case to my team to add or cut a service offering.

In practice, the above strategic work happens during times I allocate and protect in advance, where I focus on improvement instead of running down the operational list. Typically for me these are 2-hour blocks, about 1-3x per week.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#17

Post by linopolus »

I more than one time tried to incorporate checklists in my daytoday life, like for morning/evening routine, starting work for the day, etc. The problem I had is the medium:

* Paper: You check it today and have to rewrite for tomorrow, as the checkboxes are filled. Also, I tend to not look at my notebook at all, or lose it. Its never gonna be where I am.

* Apps: I tested a few, from regular todo apps to specialized "routine" apps, but they all have their quirks.

So if any of you use an app for that and are happy with it, please tell me so I can try to!

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#18

Post by linopolus »

subvocalize wrote: post #8

I use a lot of checklists, mostly via emacs org-mode. Here's an example of my daily sales workflow (B2B SaaS; formatting didn't survive very well, sorry): * Daily work DONE Check commission goal for EOY and update DONE Start airtable timing DONE Log in to TalkDesk (reboot, make sure active) DONE Sales startup * DONE select rotating priority of the day, tag with dailyFocus * DONE check calendar for any major events un…

Could you elaborate on how you manage this with org-mode? Do you have to manually reset the lists every evening?

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#19

Post by erichurkman »

I use a few sets of checklists using the app 'Things' (mac/ios). I separate out work vs. personal and try to not have them overlap in terms of time.

My work lists:

- 'today': things I need to get done, or follow up on, today. This can be items in other lists (it's a filter of a tag with a shortcut key).

- 'tomorrow': I use Apple Script to move 'tomorrow'->'today'. 'tomorrow' starts with a few fixed repeating tasks (email, pipeline, a few others) and an ingest of my calendar for tomorrow via Apple Script. Every evening I go through tomorrow's meetings or events to take notes and mark up things I need to cover.

- 'interviews': a task per person in my pipeline, with ongoing notes. I change the due date as interviews progress with next steps. Keeping it in a single todo item gives me a quick overview of people.

- 'near': things I need to do in the near future, - 'future': things I should do in the future; reviewed weekly to move things forward or ideally delete things, I keep this capped at 30 things

Re: Ask HN: How do you use checklists?

#20

Post by arca_vorago »

I found my tier 1/2 techs would often miss steps during certain functions, and started making required checklists in jira before jobs could be closed. Rates of "this still isn't fixed" went way down, which is a great, low effort high reward thing in an IT department.
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