1.List in order if priority.
2. Delete everything #6 or higher.
Done
Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
211–220 of 291 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#212The advice on this thread is generally great.
Without explaining my whole process, here are some general tips from trying to do this various ways over the last few years:
- Regularly review your TODOs, and keep them up-to-date. This is way more important than the tool you pick. Pick a slot in your calendar, fight to protect that time, and stick to it. Ultimately all these systems are just a UI veneer on you regularly deciding what’s important. It’s easy to focus on tools and not sticking to a regular process.
- Start small It’s very easy to barf everything you want to do into a system and then be completely overwhelmed by it. If this is a problem, use the review process so that you always have a list of what you actually expect to do in the next day, week, and month. Be realistic.
- Have goals at different time horizons, and have reviews for them. The GTD system of daily, weekly, monthly and annual reviews works well for me.
- Become comfortable with putting complex multidimensional things into coarse little buckets. E.g. this is a task, this is a goal; this is kinda for project A and B, but I’ll put it here; this deadline is self-imposed, this one is for a release, etc. etc. There’s no trick here apart from keep doing it, realize that these are only abstractions which are supposed to be useful to you. You’ll change them over time, but...
- Aggressively separate doing your review system, and improving it. It can be easy to sit down to review what you want to do in the next week/month/year, and end up fiddling around with how your system works. Both are neccessary, but the reviews must happen, and improving your system is a separate activity which you can schedule when appropriate!
Finally...
- Dont sweat it. It takes work, and everyone’s system is more of a mess when you look at it vs. hear them explain it. The most important thing is regularly dedicate time to thinking about how you want to spend time.
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for this David. Funnily, 5 years ago I developed my own personal kanban tool. It's still running on http://multikanban.com Of course Trello is a thousand times more powerful and polished. I was just sharing to show that I had my "personal kanban" phase in the past. It worked for some time... but for some reason I stopped really benefiting from it. The idea was to have multiple kanban boards easily accessible,…
The best way to sustain everyday.app is by making it open source and use cloudstorage (with encryption) to sync it. You don't need to make people paying $12. Great app.
I disagree. I signed up for the free initial plan of "everyday" yesterday (before seeing this thread - actually one from indiehackers). Yes, I could do something in Excel spreadsheets - but $12 is more than useful.
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#214I don’t. My life is a mess, but that’s ok haha
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#215I have a tiered storage for my to do lists.
The biggest storage (also the longest term) is Trello. I have a board with many "lists" in Trello term. Some examples:
- Learning
- Software development
- Home (repairs, improvements, etc.)
- Physical organization*
- Digital organization*
etc.
*: Having lots of data and items create its own mess.
- ToDo (what I've decided to do next, when task at hand finishes.)
- In Progress (What I'm working on).
- Done
- Cancelled (Sometimes problem solves itself or you change your mind or else).
Trello is updated weekly. New ideas are added, maybe some are cancelled. Completed ones moved to appropriate places, etc. It takes 10 to 15 minutes.
For daily tasks, I have a notebook. I write every night the next day's tasks. I have some implicit categories in it. Office, academic and personal. Incomplete tasks repeated the next day. It's like a bullet journal, but it's not.
This creates a big picture for me. I don't need to remember anything, can see my backlogs, remember what I'm working on and see how far I progressed. Writing daily tasks keep me motivated. Updating Trello also keeps me motivated and on track.
For allocating time, I have two tools. Google calendar and Pomodoro technique [0]. All my fixed tasks (like social stuff, meetings, etc.) are in my calendar. I generally decide to work on some project the night before.
When I'm working on the task, I track time with Pomodoro, so it keeps me motivated. 4-5 Pomodoros are sufficient for me to produce meaningful work. I generally use the last one to update progress and documentation, and end the day.
Hope this helps, please ask any questions you may have in your mind.
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#216I've been working on a project for the last 4-6 months around managing your books: https://getpolarized.io/ You guys loved it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960 ... but I'm sure not all of you have seen it yet. Basically you can keep all your books and web pages in one central repository, tag them, flag them or archive them and read them while keeping track of your reading. It also supports highlights, an…
Thanks, this looks like something I've been looking for lately. I'd only wished Polar would also support epub books. I couldn't find a reliable epub reader with annotations support for Windows so far.
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#217I chaotically stumble through life remembering things sometimes and doing what I feel like doing most of the time. I am still alive.
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#218This new year, I decided to allocate time on the habbit forming basis. Some are daily habbit, monthly habbit and weekly habits. Once a week I will make something with my children, daily early morning I will program for a 3-4 hours ( only if I have predefined end goal, else I will just sleep ). 15 minutes meditate, 15 minutes burpy like excercise. I am adding more as I thought it to be useful and required. It's just 13 days in, but till date it's successful. Let's see how it goes ahead...
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hoe do you review and decide what to move between places? And, how do you handle smaller todos: get milk, register domain, clean fridge, call dentist, etc Do those go in the list, or are they handled elsewhere? Review and menial tasks are the two things that trip up my efforts at a system. Also, where do you keep working notes for tasks in these lists: in the list or elsewhere? I'm very interested, it sounds like a g…
Reviewing: I review the daily todo every morning and update it every night, and I do EOW and EOM status updates with detailed analyses for the weekly and monthly files. Why could I not finish something? What should I do next month to correct it? That kind of analysis. Moving / Reprioritizing: It's a necessity for me, because unlike a salaried job, I have to balance between my revenue-earning work and my hobbies. I do…
Thank you! I truly appreciate you taking the time to explain all that. I think this system could work for me. I've just added those four text files into a folder, a notes folder, and also found an ios app which lets me easily view and edit txt files via Dropbox.
(Textor)
So, you review all four files each day? I'm guessing that if the review system is properly done, then daily and weekly files see the most change?
I've also had issues with trello and other apps, and agree it's hard to handle the analysis within the interface. I don't follow your second point though. What do you mean by store to remember, and how does it inhibit planning but allow review?
Am also self employed, so looking forward to this system. Self management required constant attention.
Also this is a trivial feature, but do you list things with asterisks and cut/paste them down to a "Done" area when finished? Or something else?
Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?
#220You’re procrastinating. Your organization is probably not the problem. My trick: my work laptop has all my favorite websites blocked in the host file. I do my most productive work at coffee shops on that laptop. My todo list is a page in my notebook. I suggest creating a place to work, and only do work there, nothing else.
> You’re procrastinating. Your organization is probably not the problem.
I'm going to have to strongly disagree with this. I have ADHD. I have a strong guttural reaction to the summation of "Oh you're procrastinating, so stop it and work instead". The number of times I've been told this, or that I was just being lazy, or that I just needed to find something I truly cared about I've lost track of.
Organization and structure is how I function.
* Task managers store all of my individual task, so I can stop having them flit into my head and distract me. I organize them once a day, with a full review once a week (Sunday). There are also a series of recurring events to help me maintain a routine. I cannot stress how important having a strict routine is for me personally.
* Timed work/break sessions. I use a pomodoro like system, by declaring break sessions it makes it easier to deal with all of the distractions or little things that I need to do so I'm not constantly switching between things. Anything no directly related to the item I'm currently working on goes into a list, which is reviewed during the break period.
* Calendars keep track of irregular events and serves as a event log, with varying degrees of importance (e.g. doctors visits, when I change my water filter, conferences, when family will be where).
* Long term goals are less of an issue for me. I will regularly flit back to them, or work in starts and fits on them, but I keep an orgmode notebook to keep notes and resources on it. Because of the irregular nature of my work on them, being able to return to something easily is important for me.
* Text to Speech reader. I use these to 1. read back what I've written, and 2. read me blocks of text. Generally I will read along as well, but because its external to my attention with a constant flow it is easier to follow.
All of these are what works for me. What works best you for may, and probably will, be entirely different. To somewhat agree with the sentiment of your post, experimenting with your system can often be counter-productive. Think of it akin to your editor. There is a cost-benefit ratio for improving your editor, and a point in which even if there is an improvement, the cost will never be recouped.
The best suggestion I can possibly give is find a way, and do it continuously and unapologetically.