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To-Do Lists Don't Work

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Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#111

Post by read »

1qaz2wsx3edc wrote: post #97
nadaviv wrote: post #22

I've had issues with TODO list in the past, but settled on a combination of a Kanban board using Trello and Pomodoros, which works quite well so far. If anyone is interested, this is what we're doing: This is how our board looks like: http://i.imgur.com/LnD5a5H.png Each Monday, we pull a week worth of tasks from the Backlog to the Weekly sprint. Each morning, we pull a day worth of work to the Daily goal. We separate…

Funny, I use Trello in a similar manor. Columns: Ideas -> Planned -> In Progress -> Deployed -> Client Review -> Done (week of x) Ideas is: for new stories, unaccepted work. Planned is: for stories the client has accepted as work. In progress is: for work being currently worked on (also doubles as time tracking). Deployed is: for stories that have been completed (tested & deployed). Client Review is: for stories that…

I would be interested to learn more about how people use Trello for personal use.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#112

Post by kabdib »

read wrote: post #110
xerophtye wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly! todo lists help ALOT. I usually use trello for this. It really helps me remember on monday what i was doing on friday and what needs to get done. None of the complains in the article make sense to me. When i make a todo list, i usually have a sense of direction so I dont get stuck in the "choices choices" problem. Besides, didn't anyone teach you how to prioritize stuff? "Urgent, Important; Important, not ur…

What do you do when you don't have a sense of direction? I wish a todo list would make me do things I wouldn't dare do. Like things you don't usually write in a todo list.

I have a higher-level "ideas.txt" file. It looks a lot like my TODO list:

Things to learn

Things to read

Stuff I'd like to do

I visit it every few weeks. There are entries from 25 years ago that I haven't touched, and probably never will. This year I checked off [x] Learn Python for Real, and a few other things I won't share. (Haskell is probably one of those things that will remain unchecked, until I find a project for it).

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#113

Post by piyush_soni »

How about to-do lists helping you to remember things? They definitely help me. I'm the kind of person who forgets everything, and doesn't even WANT TO keep useless stupid things in my mind rather than thinking something creative. Like pay rent. It is not an automatic monthly deduction in this apartment. So I HAVE to remember, otherwise it'll be a fine. There is simply a recurring task which reminds me of that. Keeping account of things that need to be done in a big project is also a thing everyone does. The thing is, everyone (including the author of this article) maintains a to-do list in one way or the other.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#114

Post by aymeric »

For people looking for more advanced todo systems:

1. GTD: Actionable todos with contexts (plenty of apps out there)

2. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Puts a accent on your goals (http://weekplan.net Disclaimer: my app)

3. Personal Kanban: Tells you not to start too many things at the same time (with http://trello.com)

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#115

Post by jaredcwhite »

I've been evolving towards a hybrid of the two approaches. I think To-Do lists work much better when you also have "time buckets" scheduled on your calendar. In other words, schedule time on your calendar in which you'll be able to complete or at least partially work on specific tasks and then use that time appropriately.

For example, instead of scheduling "write up a proposal for so-and-so", schedule "work for so-and-so" and then writing up a proposal could be one of several tasks needed for that project. Instead of scheduling "vacuum the downstairs floor", schedule "House cleaning" and then that's just one of several tasks you could do.

I find that when you schedule individual tasks, it gets crazy because some things take more time and other things less time and pretty soon your life has nothing to do with what you actually scheduled. (Which feels weird.) On the other hand, if you just have a bunch of ToDos and your calendar is mostly empty, you're going to be constantly feeling frazzled. A combination of the two seems more ideal.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#116

Post by ryan-allen »

Karunamon wrote: post #41

Can we get "(for me)" added to the topic here? There's no such thing as an organizational system that works (or doesn't work) for every person out there. I personally use Taskwarrior[1] for work (because I'm in the terminal all the time anyways), and aside from a couple of edge cases, it's the simplest and most effective thing I've found. Our group uses a JIRA[2] instance that I've customized the heck out of to make…

If they didn't sound authorative, they wouldn't be able to play to peoples' insecurities and therefore get less pageviews.

And pageviews sell Ads!

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#117

Post by kabdib »

kabdib wrote: post #52

I usually keep a local "todo" list in each project I'm on. It helps me focus, and if I'm away from a project for a while it helps me figure out what I've done (I seldom remove old entries, as it gives me a sense of history). Like most processes, it's better to keep something like this lightweight. "Nested todos" are about as fancy as things get. I also check the todo lists into the project. Sure, it makes things a li…

I should add that one drawback of keeping your TODO list checked in is that people will hijack it and try to use it for scheduling purposes.

The times that I've shared my TODO list with a project manager, I've regretted it. This /could/ simply be that the kind of PM who makes a schedule based on snapshot of an engineer's loosey-goosey list is a clueless git who is not to be trusted. Even when I've directly shared the list and TOLD the PM "Look, don't make a schedule off of this, it's just a basis for discussion" the next thing I know the list has been enshrined in a PowerPoint deck and has become Gospel all the way up. Whereupon the following conversation happens with my mangler [sic]:

"Figby the PM is a clueless git."

"Don't worry. The PM management chain is trying to fire him."

"Couldn't happen soon enough. But what do we do about his PowerPoint deck?"

"I think we're screwed."

"Next time I'm going to line up the items so the first letter of each line reads 'FIGBY IS A CLUELESS GIT'" and then point that out in the scheduling meeting."

"(sighs heavily)"

My mom thinks I'm in high tech.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#118

Post by Karunamon »

majelix wrote: post #92
ams6110 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are your shell scripts/aliases available anywhere?

They're probably simple wrappers around https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/org.swift.atlassia...

That's exactly what we use. Unfortunately the scripts are full of various hardcoded internal info and I am not at liberty to post them. The CLI tools here make it very easy, though.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#119

Post by pseut »

read wrote: post #110
xerophtye wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly! todo lists help ALOT. I usually use trello for this. It really helps me remember on monday what i was doing on friday and what needs to get done. None of the complains in the article make sense to me. When i make a todo list, i usually have a sense of direction so I dont get stuck in the "choices choices" problem. Besides, didn't anyone teach you how to prioritize stuff? "Urgent, Important; Important, not ur…

What do you do when you don't have a sense of direction? I wish a todo list would make me do things I wouldn't dare do. Like things you don't usually write in a todo list.

Try adding a "wishlist" or "if I finish everything else early" section. You'd be surprised at how quickly some of those items get done when, um, procrastinating on the other tasks.

Re: To-Do Lists Don't Work

#120

Post by ekianjo »

sanderjd wrote: post #86
corresation wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we get "(for me)" added to the topic here? Such a disclaimer (or rather "for some people") could be added to almost every lifehack / productivity tip / work habit / fitness technique / etc. Work at home / in the office / in the cafe / for yourself / in a team / pair programming / standing desks / morning walks / coffee brewing / IDE tools / soylent / fasting / feasting / work-life balance / pretty much everything…

(I think) This is similar to how you could preface nearly any statement you make anywhere with "I think". My instinct is to qualify everything and I often have to go back and delete the qualification because it pointlessly weakens every sentence. Either that or I notice it after I've already written and cringe at re-reading it ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6457261 ). (I think) It is usually better to let you…

Well the problem of not mentioning "I think" is when you pretend that "X does not work" while 99% of your peers use it and do not seem to have a significant problem with it. Then the statement makes more sense if you phrase it "X does not work for me" or "You may like X but I don't", since it would then seem that you are a very unique person with a very unique problem.

If you had this kind of statement in other fields, like "Gaming on Consoles is broken", no doubt you'd get tons of people saying that this is wrong, because obviously millions of people have no problem with it.

Making such absolute statements is akin to trolling.

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