How are you managing little tasks that pop up in meetings, slack messages, and other conversations that are important, but not necessarily a priority?
Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#2Paper notes. Either a spiral bound notebooks or spoiled prints that come out of making things like
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111275639588948846
Nothing electronic because of problems with object constancy: I am already looking at a screen and don't want to lose what I am looking at, have to navigate through lots of tabs and icons to find my note taking application, then navigate through lots of tabs and icons to get back where I was.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#3Post-its (r).
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#4Paper notes. Either a spiral bound notebooks or spoiled prints that come out of making things like https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111275639588948846 Nothing electronic because of problems with object constancy: I am already looking at a screen and don't want to lose what I am looking at, have to navigate through lots of tabs and icons to find my note taking application, then navigate through lots of tabs and icons to g…
This is what I like to do, but I lose things in my notes sometimes.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#5Slack yourself or use whatever is faster.m,Reminder app , etc.
Avoid paper
Only use app you use on a daily based. Go back and consolidate them to at EOD.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#6Draft email to the other party that might be affected, could be myself. I review those drafts regularly to see if they can be deleted or need to be refined and eventually sent out, deleted or incorporated into some kind of project schedule.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#7I don't remember them. I just use a list to manage my tasks and check them off.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#8Slack yourself or use whatever is faster.m,Reminder app , etc. Avoid paper Only use app you use on a daily based. Go back and consolidate them to at EOD.
I'll admit that I slack myself a lot. As well as rely on reminders to revisit messages at a later (less busy) time.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#9For recurring tasks I use cron + ntfy to send myself a notification.
This way I can add a bit more conditional logic before sending myself a notification.
Re: Ask HN: What are your 'mental hacks' to remember small tasks?
#10I put each task on a line in a file called `to-do.txt` which perpetually lives on my desktop. When I complete a task, I mark `X` on the beginning of the line. Whenever the length of the file starts to feel unwieldy, I delete the oldest completed tasks.