Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#21

Post by zump »

movedx wrote: post #15
zump wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An app never works for productivity stuff.

It would be interesting to hear your experiences on this, such as what apps you've tried and had fail for you in terms of productivity? I would agree with what you've said to a point, but this kind of statement needs expanding. For my wife and I, we're using Wunderlist (bought my Microsoft in 2015) and we can assign things to each other, star them as important, comment on tasks, leaves notes, set reminders, and so on…

I've tried OneNote, WorkFlowy and a few no name Android apps.

Platform issues and friction is far too high. Even just loading up the browser, or context switching to a different tab. Plus... if your work is of mathematical nature, it's an added headache.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#22

Post by newman314 »

I spent a lot of time context switching (lots of roles, go-to guy for fixing things) so lists are a key tool in keeping me sane.

I've tried many things over the years but settled on Quip. The availability of the app on many platforms (mobile, desktop) means I can pretty much take notes anywhere (except the shower; I have pen and paper for that and transfer it to Quip later).

The shared notebook functionality allows me to easily organize my thoughts and share with others as necessary. This works for both short lists and longer documents. For example, I've built a fairly extensive document on HTTPS configs and best practices over time just by filling things in as I go along.

No relationship to Quip. Just a very happy user.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#23

Post by ljk »

ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

also pen-and-paper note taker here.

there's something satisfying about physically crossing off a list when a pen after spending 10+hrs typing

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#24

Post by chambo622 »

newman314 wrote: post #22

I spent a lot of time context switching (lots of roles, go-to guy for fixing things) so lists are a key tool in keeping me sane. I've tried many things over the years but settled on Quip. The availability of the app on many platforms (mobile, desktop) means I can pretty much take notes anywhere (except the shower; I have pen and paper for that and transfer it to Quip later). The shared notebook functionality allows m…

My company uses Quip and I'm very happy with it as well. Thinking of moving some of my personal notes and lists from Keep over to Quip. Although I'd give Keep the leg up for simple, quick notes on mobile (and their predictive entry for grocery lists is fantastic)

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#25

Post by ai_maker »

ljk wrote: post #23
ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

also pen-and-paper note taker here. there's something satisfying about physically crossing off a list when a pen after spending 10+hrs typing

Very true, but in the real world where what's urgent goes before what's important, you are often forced to reschedule stuff, and the pen&paper approach clearly is in disadvantage here.

My solution is a dynamic todo called myTinyTodo [1], a very simple app where I can sort stuff by project, deadline, importance, etc.

[1] http://www.mytinytodo.net/

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#26

Post by asadjb »

This first few sentences of this article describe almost exactly how I've been feeling lately:

  For a long time, I resisted to-do lists. I wanted the flexibility. I felt that if I kept a list, it would tie me down to a particular set of tasks. Gradually, though, I came around. The busier my work life became, the more crucial it was to have some sort of running agenda on hand.
It was embarrassing after a few times when I kept forgetting important tasks, and that pushed me towards using a todo list manager at work.

Being a developer who works almost exclusively in a terminal, I settled for using TaskWarrior (TW). I can't recommend it enough for people who spend most of their time in a CLI. I tried a bunch of different options before I found TW, and my biggest problem with anything else was the added friction and mental context switch involved in switching to another app to add a task.

Now I'm looking for something more, a task manager that works everywhere. Especially for longer projects and goals, something I can use for my personal life. While TW is great for the CLI, it lacks apps for the desktop and mobile (OS X and iOS). I've settled to using Wunderlist for now, which is the best option I could find for myself, but I'd love something that works as well as TW for the desktop and mobile, which for me is just entering tasks as a single line of text and having meta data like due date, project, categorization, etc picked out automatically (which Wunderlist does for dates but not categorization).

And one very important thing I've felt a couple of days ago when I moved to Wunderlist for my personal stuff is that at least for me it makes me feel more relaxed as well. I had a bad day a while back where I was in a panic because I had a lot of things to do personally and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere with any of those tasks. I sat down for about 30 minutes and just created tasks for everything. Since then I feel a lot easier. While I may not have made any progress on the tasks, just knowing they are written down somehow makes me feel better.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#27

Post by DiabloD3 »

asadjb wrote: post #26

This first few sentences of this article describe almost exactly how I've been feeling lately: For a long time, I resisted to-do lists. I wanted the flexibility. I felt that if I kept a list, it would tie me down to a particular set of tasks. Gradually, though, I came around. The busier my work life became, the more crucial it was to have some sort of running agenda on hand. It was embarrassing after a few times when…

When I last used Wunderlist, I really disliked how inflexible it was, and how bad it was at handling recurring tasks.

I discovered Todoist shortly after, and stuck with it.

I think for me, personally, to get anything even more productive, I'd have to write it myself.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#28

Post by pulse7 »

ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

I also use paper: 1) master todo list: "list of lists" what neets to be done for each category / project 2) calendar with daily todo list: what from master todo list needs to be done today or at specific day

Everything without built-in three letter agency spying... I use Moleskine.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#29

Post by Ayaz »

No application I've ever tried has worked for me in the sense that I felt it an indispensable part of my life. In almost all instances, after a few days, I always kept forgetting to use the application. Plus, the overhead of using applications seemed to appear significant overtime.

I am now successfully down to a good fountain pen and a clear notebook. It is also part of my strategy to break my device-addiction, which is bordering on insanity. Where I used to take in my laptop to meetings and use mind maps and others for taking down notes and ideas discussed, I only simply carry my notebook -- my pen is usually in my shirt's front pocket.

I have rediscovered the love for handwriting, which I had all through my childhood and teenage years. I had a beautiful cursive handwriting and could write fast, which I gave up when I joined university in favour of a more mechanical style, and soon thereafter, gave up on writing completely. I have started writing in cursive again, and it makes for my ability to take down notes very fast in a handwriting that looks good.

The only real grievance I have is when I want my notes to be available to others. In those cases, I do wonder if it wouldn't have been better to have typed them down in the first place (I'm a fast typist). But, it is a small price I'm happily willing to pay.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#30

Post by Ayaz »

TheDrizzle43 wrote: post #4
taeric wrote: post #2

> To-do lists get a lot of flack, > but the simple act of planning > has some psychological and > productivity benefits all > by itself. My problem is that TODO lists are not necessarily a solid basis for planning. Specifically, they are often only good for easy plans.

If I don't write tasks in a TODO list I get anxious I'll forget about it forever. Even if I don't plan on doing a task anytime soon I like to jot it down so I have the freedom to forget about it.

Indeed. That's the reason I liked the 'braindump' idea of WeekPlan.net[0].

http://weekplan.net/online-course-time-management/braindumps...

Post reply on HN