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Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#31
For work, it goes into my Todoist inbox.

For personal, it goes into my Apple Reminders app.

I put in as much or as little information as I care to, at that moment.

I make it a point to look at both every day, and adjust items as necessary.

I do keep a pen and notepad on my nightstand, but my phone's also there, so I almost never end up using the notepad.

Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#32
Handwritten notes on my paper calendar or in my journal/diary/notebook or on random scraps of paper; since I generally keep track of things spatially, this approach works better than digital notes, which all get flattened to a nebulous point in my mind. CTRL+F is wonderful, but the barrier to getting to the file in the first place is too high. I'll keep using this for archiving notes I think I'll want to access later, until I finally grow out of that and realize that a thought I had three years ago is relatively unimportant. I'm not there yet, and still compulsively comb through my notes, saving some and discarding others.

For awhile I was chucking notes into Obsidian but now I'm in the process of transferring it all of my phone to text files on my laptop and using paper more again. The shine is off Obsidian; takes too long to load, and the Find action is too out of reach. I like the act of writing by hand, anyway.

Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#33
It's essentially creating states/variables then garbage collect it upon completing. There are several things you can do:

Remember it in your brain: It's like let the state occupying one of the 16 registers in your brain. Later it will automatically offloads in the hard disk in your brain but there's a chance it gets lost or cannot be recalled reliably. Not recommend. But I do this more recently because I realised I don't have to do everything.

The stateless approach: Do it immediately so you don't need to bear the state/variable. Even though sometime it disrupts my current tasks, I find this approach is surprisingly relieving - less debts. Just like software engineering - minimise states because they're evil.

External storage approach: Write it down on paper or an app. There are trade offs between the tool you're using, but the key is to minimise the cost of your moves.

For pen and paper I tried different configurations until I can always comfortably carry them in my pocket.

For digital approaches I'm currently shovel things to Linear. Make sure you're fluent with shortcuts so you can create tasks and jump around like a breeze. I also use Arc browser and pin it in the third slot so I can jump to Linear with without even thinking about it.

Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#34
As I'm in the terminal most of the time, I started using todo.txt [0], but I haven't used it enough to tell if this is *the* solution for me. Curious if others use this too and can stay on top of things with todo.txt

[0] https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt-cli/wiki/User-Documentat...

Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#35
A paper notebook with todo lists. In my original industry (mechanical engineering) I was taught to maintain notebooks with glued spines (i.e. not binders or coiled-notebooks that can have pages removed/added) in case you ever have to defend yourself within a company or even in court. Over time I have developed a system to keep todo lists in my notebooks.

Generally, I have one "backlog" list and one "current" list. Whenever a task comes up, I make a small box ("⃞") and a description in one of the lists. I fill in the box when a task is done ("■"). Every 1-3 days I start a new current todo list by striking through remaining items off the old one and writing them in priority order in a new list, writing them in backlog, or deciding they don't need to be done, ever ("⊠"), or delegate to someone (strike through with an arrowhead and note about the name). Every week or so I do the same thing with the backlog list. I always write the date at the top of the page when I start a new list, and very rarely note dates for starting/finishing tasks.

I see a few benefits with a notebook system. 1) It takes some effort to rewrite tasks so it also encourages me to just do 5 or so low-effort tasks for 20 minutes instead of re-writing them. 2) If I need to focus on some particular tasks, I can make a priority list in a very deliberate order, finish it and then go back to my current list. 3) I can look back at my old lists and see patterns in struck-through vs checked-done vs X-d tasks vs delegated tasks

I also take notes (for meetings etc) in the notebook, and when needed for work, rewrite them in confluence or whatever. At the top right corner of pages which need an online version, I draw "⧄", and I fill it in as "◩" when it's actually online. It's saved my ass a few times to use my notebook to say "well we met on x date, and I put the notes online with you tagged so you should know this" or "I see here that I marked this task as done, and thinking back I sent you a message about it". It's way faster and more credible in the moment than opening your laptop and searching n number of services for communication.

Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?

#37
I'd like to say I have some productivity routine and daily practice that improves my memory....

But I just follow one simple rule. Don't even try to remember anything critical, put all information in Google Keep, or paper if I want to appear professional or not break theming and atmosphere by being seen with a phone.

If it's time based I set calendar reminders.

The only time I don't use tech is when the cost of failure is relatively low, otherwise... I've screwed myself over way too many times by not setting reminders.

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