41–50 of 62 posts
Personal: again OneNote for the same things (for example have a list of wines I really like).
Calendar-wise: my two jobs nor personal life require a full-blown calendar. I just put in in my head!
For years, I used: - Google Calendar for timed events - Starred Messages in Gmail for things I'd need to reference - Drafts in Gmail for things that needed replies - a flat text file for misc things / things that didn't involve interation with others so didn't have emails.
The main problem with that system is that it doesn't really help with prioritization. Even things that have a date / time and go into my calendar, I needed some additional note about if they required preparation ahead of time. The text file would also regularly become cluttered with ideas I didn't have time to follow up on, that had to periodically be moved to a separate file.
Trello supports: - Custom categories / prioritization levels - Dates & Times - Checklists - Easy movement between phone + laptop - A separate category for "long term", un-prioritized cards.
It is also perfectly functional at the free level if you don't want to pay.
So while I still star messages in Gmail if they're short-term and need to be referenced frequently, and I still use a calendar for timed events (Sunrise.am now instead of the Google Calendar interface), I've moved everything else into Trello. It also helps that I used the same two tools at work now -- I don't have to transition between two different sets of tools every day.
Project overviews go into a task tracker, which is Jira for work and the ToDo app for home.
I track time constrained events on my calendar, with alerts set to go off at an interval chosen to ensure any pre-deadline tasks are completed.
I use vimwiki as my long term scrach pad, with work and home separated into separate wikis. In these I try and ensure that I can pick up any task I have worked on in the past just by reading through the appropriate page, and that I have enough cross-links to be able to dive into any subject I haven't touched in some time.
This does mean that the Wiki consumes quite a bit of time, as ensuring project notes are both complete and accurate means going back through everything and fixing assumptions.
Code notes keep track of the subtasks I need to complete in the code: I use `XXX` to delineate "complete me before releasing" tasks, and `TODO` for "look at this the next time you're working on this code". For example, I might outline the high level process first as a series of XXX comments. Then as I implement the code which replaces these comments, I will write necessary stubs with their own XXX comments on what needs to be implemented. If I write something I don't like (but it works), it gets a TODO for refactoring.
Sometimes these code comments don't even last for two minutes, but it ensures that if I have to leave the code base for a week, I can come back to it and quickly identify what I was doing and why.
External communications which require a response are all kept in my email inbox; if it's in my inbox it either needs to be reviewed or it needs a reply, upon review if it doesn't need a reply the data is moved to the appropriate location and the email is archived.
This results in a flow which revolves around getting a task (either via an interrupt or the task tracker), pulling up and reading through the appropriate project wiki page, and beginning work. The notes in the code let me know where I was in the process of completing this task, and what remains to be done.
Once a task is completed (or an interruption starts a new task), I do a bit of cleanup by updating the task tracker to reflect the work which was completed, checking code into git, close all the related windows and start on the next task.
In my job, context switches are usually triggered by in person conversations, and happen all too frequently. This is why I intentionally limit my working rate with frequent updates to the wiki and code notes, so I can get back to a task and not forget something vital because my working memory got fragmented by interruptions.
One improvement I hope to make at some point in time is to use separate windows to keep multiple tasks alive at any given time, which could reduce the extra context switch cleanup I currently perform.
Jira. I host it at home and have my own workflows and projects set up. Everything I do goes into JIRA.
Jira. I host it at home and have my own workflows and projects set up. Everything I do goes into JIRA.
I just checked the website. It looks like its similar to Trello. Is that so?
Here are a few tips that have worked for me to achieve the desired kind of big picture awareness and mental state suitable both for flow and for strategic thinking: - keep a simple per-project todo list (I use a text file that I edit with emacs in text mode, one item per line. Delete when finished). - realize that if you are procrastinating it might be because part of your brain disagrees with a decision you have mad…
Now THAT sounds like wisdom