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How to organize yourself as a solo founder

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Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#61

Post by 1123581321 »

gekkostate wrote: post #41
smartmic wrote: post #39

Hey, a little bit off-topic, but: here comes a very original HN experience. The author himself writes that tools are the least important, but for the HN crowd, it seems that tools are above anything. In consequence, the thread here is mostly about the tools only. Combined with the favorite topic of self-organization, this can serve as highly illustrative material about HN.

OP here. Thanks for reading the post! I agree with you. It seems that the HN crowd is very much interested in tools while I explicitly mention that the tool question is the least important one. I'm curious to know why folks are more interested in tools than principles or why there is little discussion about the principles.

Re-reading your post, I would say it comes from implied disagreement with your deprioritization of the right tools. You also use the word system a lot in the essay, which mentally translates to tool for a lot of people (myself included, if I’m not careful.) It’s also hard to do more than mildly agree or disagree with GTD and energy management principles. I also suspect anyone disagreeing with your main point, coming into this thread to insist they can remember everything to do, would be attacked. I agree more variety in the discussion would be nice.

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#62

Post by gumby »

paul_f wrote: post #20

Having tried everything, nothing works better than 5x8 yellow pads. Write down everything you need to do. Draw a line thru when done. Every few days, rebuild the list. Everything has to be on one page, or there are too many to-do's, and you can delete ones that just don't make the cut. No technology, just pen and paper.

Agree.

Some things that help appear stupid. There's a psychological value in that crossing out action. Someone told me a few years ago to draw a little box next to the item and put a check mark when done (instead of crossing out). Weirdly, it seemed even more satisfying.

I think the real truth in all this is something simple like a written list means you spend less overhead curating your work and therefore have more bandwidth to actually do it -- coupled with the "small wins" of crossing out or ticking off the item.

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#63

Post by ekkeke »

pdevr wrote: post #25

After using a lot of different tools, now I use a plain text file. It works for me. I move things down as I finish them. The top part always have my pending tasks in there. The file is more than ten years old now, and have been the best productivity tool for me that I started using the same approach at office as well. I had some sticky notes at office, but now with the world having changed, I took a screenshot of all…

I keep my notes in notepad++ as plaintext. I've always thought of this as a time saver because it removes any time wasted not actually working. Now I'm reconsidering.

I haven't been using GTD but I used a vaguely similar system of notes to keep track of what I need to do. This article has really focused some of the areas I might be improve this, mainly through giving more information about each task (context, time, energy, priority).

I think this is where a more sophisticated tool might help, because it will be hard to organise that in plaintext and somehting with a columnar way of representing this information in tables will help (btw open for suggestions that aren't excel!).

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#64

Post by pdevr »

kag0 wrote: post #58
pdevr wrote: post #25

After using a lot of different tools, now I use a plain text file. It works for me. I move things down as I finish them. The top part always have my pending tasks in there. The file is more than ten years old now, and have been the best productivity tool for me that I started using the same approach at office as well. I had some sticky notes at office, but now with the world having changed, I took a screenshot of all…

How do you keep this synchronized between devices? I had tried this with a git repo but pull/pushing before/after jotting down a note on my phone got tedious.

I have disciplined myself to do it only one way. That is enough, and keeps it simple for most purposes. Copy from the phones and other devices, paste to the main device. It being just one file makes it much easier to do so. It is backed up regularly using rsync, as part of my daily backup of everything.

The hardest part - for me, at least - was to let go of the myth of the need for multi-directional syncing.

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#65

Post by agumonkey »

gumby wrote: post #62
paul_f wrote: post #20

Having tried everything, nothing works better than 5x8 yellow pads. Write down everything you need to do. Draw a line thru when done. Every few days, rebuild the list. Everything has to be on one page, or there are too many to-do's, and you can delete ones that just don't make the cut. No technology, just pen and paper.

Agree. Some things that help appear stupid. There's a psychological value in that crossing out action. Someone told me a few years ago to draw a little box next to the item and put a check mark when done (instead of crossing out). Weirdly, it seemed even more satisfying. I think the real truth in all this is something simple like a written list means you spend less overhead curating your work and therefore have more…

I noticed that too. I try to go full digital and abstract.. and now I often go back to the usual vintage material/physical habits. Something about moving/touching/seeing/filing changes how your brain notices the event.

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#66

Post by kag0 »

pdevr wrote: post #64
kag0 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you keep this synchronized between devices? I had tried this with a git repo but pull/pushing before/after jotting down a note on my phone got tedious.

I have disciplined myself to do it only one way. That is enough, and keeps it simple for most purposes. Copy from the phones and other devices, paste to the main device. It being just one file makes it much easier to do so. It is backed up regularly using rsync, as part of my daily backup of everything. The hardest part - for me, at least - was to let go of the myth of the need for multi-directional syncing.

I think manual copying would kill it for me. I'm just back and forth between multiple devices throughout the day and it seems like that would amount to a lot of copying. Although there's only one of me, so there's never a need to merge. So it's not really multi-directional syncing, it's more like broadcast from whatever I'm using currently to everything else.

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#67

Post by journey_16162 »

mellavora wrote: post #29
dnndev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a good idea if I could read my own handwriting. I get this works for some, but never has for me. I have never been a notebook type of person. I love your general approach and very similar to a digital version I use.

You could work on improving your handwriting. You might notice other benefits. I read about one person whose math comprehension increased dramatically when they improved their penmanship; something about a mental link between the ability to visualize the formulas in their mind and the ability to create/visualize them on paper.

Not OP. I don't see how handwriting is better. I'm already working on the laptop, notepad app is almost integrated with everything else, I can access it in miliseconds with keyboard shortcuts. I can create a similar list in a simple notepad app, i.e.:

x Task 1

x Task 2

- Task 3

- Task 4

Re: How to organize yourself as a solo founder

#68

Post by viyiene »

bdominy wrote: post #5
TastyJhinga wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use something like jira or trello at that point? Having to remember the color associations for subtasks physically seems a bit too much for me. Also, software is something you can access from anywhere and you don't have to be in one single place.

Software solutions are fine and I have used them before, especially with a team, but as a solo founder, I just like simple Post-Its - to each their own.

I think it's better to stick with the simple old ways too! Maybe as a solo founder you can get some more insights with our community on http://founderscafe.io/, maybe you can share some of your practices too!
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