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Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#41

Post by ArtWomb »

Over organization can kill the spirit. Especially in creative endeavors. Let's say you are working in independent game development. And you alone are responsible for all design, tech, art, music and distribution. Allocating hourly intervals for each task at a set time each day can breed monotony. Rather, when you feel that inner fire to work on the music. Focus solely on that one task for an uninterrupted period of 4 hours. And always with the tools of reinforcement to show steady progress, such as documenting everything and visualizing milestones.

I thought it was really interesting to hear about Ninja, the fabled Fortnite streamer, talk about his work ethic. Which was basically to have two 4 hour chunks of livestreaming per day. One in the morning, and one at night. Separated by a 4 hour slot in the middle to spend with family and friends. He's had the discipline to keep it up for a decade, even when few people were watching. But having that accountability of an audience to livestream to, provides the impetus for daily progress.

Best of luck ;)

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#42

Post by mezod »

Memosyne wrote: post #23

Every couple of months I open a text file, insert headers denoting the coming months, and write down things I have to accomplish under those headers. Whenever I progress an objective, I jot down the task that helped me progress in the past tense. For instance, under January I could add "Spend time with family" and under that I would include "Went snow boarding with siblings". I do this because I'm not prescient; I do…

AS a matter of fact, I do something similar. I recommend you try dynalist.io out. Much more powerful than a textfile :P

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#43

Post by dhimes »

elorant wrote: post #34

I have a rather meticulous program. For starters, I write everything down on a daily log. Thoughts, notes, tasks, everything. I do it with pen and paper because I like writing and it helps me thinking things more thoroughly. Then at the end of the day I move actionable tasks to a different journal which has to-do lists by project. At the beginning of each week I peruse the projects lists and choose tasks to move to a…

This is quite similar to my approach. I use the same notebook for my actionable tasks though (my daily to-do list is in this notebook), project-related stuff is kept together in separate files if necessary. The layout of the 'action-day' calendar comes closest to meeting my needs, so I use it

https://www.amazon.com/Action-Day-Planner-2019-Productivity/...

Something like this for keeping track of the project information (note: I haven't actually listened to this podcast).

https://www.steverrobbins.com/getitdoneguy/152-project-statu...

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#44

Post by matwood »

dharmapure wrote: post #26
mondo9000 wrote: post #8

Realize that this behavior is just fancy procrastination. I can collect recipes all day, but it won't make me a better cook.

Procrastination is fun and complicated. "Just Do It" doesn't seem to help much for me. After reading more I've found a number of reasons for procrastination that may be helpful depending on the cause: Is the task too vague? If so, making it more concrete helps. "Do taxes" is impossibly vague and scary and the brain rebels. "Make a list of all expenses this year" is better but still large. This is the most common actu…

The mind is great at rationalizing excuses. It is about executing. It is about having the discipline to do the things you don't want to do, but know they have to get done.

As soon as you start thinking about motivation, you have lost. Motivation is fleeting. Even the most important task that is also fun will likely become a grind before you are done. How do you get it finished? Have the discipline to grind it out.

I'm not implying any of this easy. When the alarm goes off every morning to go to the gym, it sucks. But I do it anyway. The first step is accepting it is not easy and it will suck at times.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#45

Post by MarsAscendant »

lovelearning wrote: post #40

4 text files that go from vague life goals down to concrete hourly tasks: - todo-year.txt : all goals for the year - todo-month.txt : track subset of annual goals to finish this month - todo-week.txt : track all monthly high-level tasks to finish this week - todo.txt : daily task plan based on weekly plan. Switch tasks every 1 hour. In a day, I plan for about 4 tasks, so each task ends up getting about 2 hours. Self-…

The tiering of goals in the way you've done it is brilliant.

Do you consult upper-tier lists when making lower-tier assignments?

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#46

Post by gyvastis »

lovelearning wrote: post #40

4 text files that go from vague life goals down to concrete hourly tasks: - todo-year.txt : all goals for the year - todo-month.txt : track subset of annual goals to finish this month - todo-week.txt : track all monthly high-level tasks to finish this week - todo.txt : daily task plan based on weekly plan. Switch tasks every 1 hour. In a day, I plan for about 4 tasks, so each task ends up getting about 2 hours. Self-…

This is brilliant! Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#47

Post by acconrad »

For things I need to do that have a date and time: I put them in Google calendar. Even for the most mundane of activities.

For things that don't have a specific date and time but I know I need to do them: I put them in Asana. And I have them organized by day, so my main Asana page has subsections labeled "Monday:" "Tuesday:" etc and I just put all of my todos and spread them out throughout the week.

These two things have done enormous things for my productivity.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#48

Post by geezerjay »

acutesoftware wrote: post #39

Writing down your ideas is a good thing - you may likely come back to them later and expand / learn from them. I think the trick is to work out what you "really want to execute" vs "what you are willing to spend time to execute". If you have a lot of ideas, you will not be able to execute them all, and that is a hard pill to swallow. Like you, I have lots of ideas I'd love to complete but time is a factor - pick the…

> I think the trick is to work out what you "really want to execute" vs "what you are willing to spend time to execute". If you have a lot of ideas, you will not be able to execute them all, and that is a hard pill to swallow.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a very effective framework to decide which tasks to execute and which goals to drop.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#49

Post by mezod »

dharmapure wrote: post #26
mondo9000 wrote: post #8

Realize that this behavior is just fancy procrastination. I can collect recipes all day, but it won't make me a better cook.

Procrastination is fun and complicated. "Just Do It" doesn't seem to help much for me. After reading more I've found a number of reasons for procrastination that may be helpful depending on the cause: Is the task too vague? If so, making it more concrete helps. "Do taxes" is impossibly vague and scary and the brain rebels. "Make a list of all expenses this year" is better but still large. This is the most common actu…

this might be the single most useful reply in the whole thread.

Specificitiy (paragraph 2) is crucial.

I'd add that goals (paragraph 3) are a result of identity (paragraph 5) so it's basically the same idea. How do you see your better self? Do these projects/tasks align with your vision of your better self?

If you feel you are X (paragraph 5) and you feel you can be superX (paragraph 4) you'll undoubtedly be able to carry on with your goals (paragraph 3). Breaking these down (paragraph 2) will help.

Not satisfied with the way I put it but that's the idea.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

#50

Post by MarsAscendant »

matwood wrote: post #44
dharmapure wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Procrastination is fun and complicated. "Just Do It" doesn't seem to help much for me. After reading more I've found a number of reasons for procrastination that may be helpful depending on the cause: Is the task too vague? If so, making it more concrete helps. "Do taxes" is impossibly vague and scary and the brain rebels. "Make a list of all expenses this year" is better but still large. This is the most common actu…

The mind is great at rationalizing excuses. It is about executing. It is about having the discipline to do the things you don't want to do, but know they have to get done. As soon as you start thinking about motivation, you have lost. Motivation is fleeting. Even the most important task that is also fun will likely become a grind before you are done. How do you get it finished? Have the discipline to grind it out. I'…

> When the alarm goes off every morning to go to the gym, it sucks. But I do it anyway. The first step is accepting it is not easy and it will suck at times.

This is a major problem for me right now. The depression doesn't help, but it's clear that it needn't stop me from doing well – as evident from all the great stuff artists with depression have made.

How do you get to that point, mentally? Were you raised with discipline in mind – as in, were your parents/guardians promoting discipline within you? Did you get to it yourself?

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