Is there such a thing as a sustainable todo system?
ryanwaggoner.com
ryanwaggoner.com
Here is my solution: I've resorted to sticky notes placed semi-organised on my wall next to my computer. They're roughly organised by priority, and roughly by project.
There are a few reasons why this system is awesome:
1. High priority tasks cannot be easily "shifted down" to put something else above them. This forces me to deal with oldest first.
2. The only way to make something even higher priority is to go further up the wall. There is a limit to how high I can reach, therefore I have to be REALLY sure about putting something high on the list.
3. I'm using cheap sticky notes. The glue lasts about 3 weeks before it falls off the wall. If I haven't done it in that time, it's not going to happen. It also obviously wasn't that important and deserves to be on the floor. Occasionally, I go and pick up the drop offs and double check if I really should've done anything with them.
4. It's tactile. When something is done, there is nothing more rewarding that taking down the note, screwing it up and throwing it in the bin. TAKE THAT TASK!!!
I use post its obviously and whiteyboard.
Also, its fun shaping your post its into peoples faces you dislike and slowly dismantling it. but this may be a spiteful thing to do that's inherent to people who are petty like me lol.
(Half seriously) you should pad out your approach, make it an ebook and try selling it to people. It's novel enough that it just might work.
This forces me to review and eliminate tasks that I blatantly won't do (self-cleaning) and keeps track of other relevant tasks (no lost tasks). Works great.
When overworked, as another layer, I add a number next to the tasks, 1, 2, 3 or 4. This allows me to more easily ignore the 3's and 4's until the 1's and 2's are completed.
If you have tasks for managing your todo list on your todo list then it is too complicated.
So I end up trying to manage everything in my email+tasks systems (Exchange/Outlook for work and Gmail for personal). That works somewhat well, but breaks down for a couple cases. I still prefer a paper list where I can scribble new input as well, for meetings and offline / distraction-free planning time. It's not as hard to copy from paper to email+tasks, but I never seem to get it done.
org-mode. org-mode is a wonderful TODO extension for Emacs. I add a new file to org-mode's global TODO list every day. I tried keeping individual project files, but using tags to separate projects ended up being the least-effort system.
Break up tasks. As with code, work can be decomposed into small, orthogonal tasks. Take a small amount of time to enter a TODO item for each one. I'm only human - I'd much rather start a small task than a large one. If I discover I finished something, but there's not a corresponding TODO item, I add it and close it. Why deprive myself the satisfaction?
Lazy update. Since I have several small tasks that represent a job to be done, I only revisit my TODO list every few hours for cleanup (and to ensure I haven't forgotten anything). Touching my TODO list whenever I do something is overkill.
Loose prioritizing. I track the importance of each line-item by Low, Medium, and High priority. 80% of items are Medium priority, and most of the rest are High. These are just suggestions: for instance, I pick short Medium tasks before starting long High priority tasks.
Relentlessly prune. Plans change. Just delete irrelevant or items from your list and move on. I tracked closing information on line-items for over a year until I realized that I had never needed to go back to look at the resolution information or start/end timestamps. Over a year after I stopped, I still haven't.
Know when to let go. When something needs to be done yesterday, someone asks every 30 minutes if you are finished. You don't need other reminders. Skip the TODO list and get to work.
An additional benefit is if you ever need to establish billing or sweat equity valuation, you already have a log of time put into everything.
If you're a mac person, it's worth checking out: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper
The fact it doesn't do anything fancy is part of its appeal. The storage format is plain text so you can always view/edit it in any editor (there are plugins for vim, textmate, etc). Having it sync with an iPhone app is also very nice.
I create an updated list once a week or so, then I use a highlighter to highlight my next most important tasks (2 or 3), then work through them and cross them off the list. Combined with setting my one or two most critical goals for the day, this has worked out quite well.
Sounds like the Hawthorne effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
"The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation."
If I weren't using NV, I'd use Notepad.exe or TextMate or TextEdit. I wouldn't use anything more complex than those.
I adjust things on my (multiple times a) weekly review. Stuff that needs to be done on a specific day goes on my calendar accordingly.
I carry around a small stack of 20 or so plain index cards for on-the-go. If I come up with an idea or a todo, I write it down on the card in biggish letters, any notes about the task or idea also go on the card. One card per idea or task.
When I'm near my inbox, I chuck the cards I wrote on in there, or I immediately file them in Notational Velocity.
I've tried and wasted money on paper day planners, Things, Omnifocus, Evernote, Google Tasks, GTD Tracks, RTM, etc. I found they were all too cumbersome and annoying to set up and maintain.
Likewise a paper list by itself was too much crossing out, moving around and erasing.
I advise people to stay away from 43Folders, Lifehacker, and the like to avoid the "GTD method of the week" distractions. Use what works and is not a pain in the ass.
Funny you mention GTD. I'm driving across the country and earlier today started listening to the GTD audiobook. Five minutes in, I stopped it. Just not my cup of tea honestly. I listened to Feynman and Kurt V. instead.
I also just got GTD, but the book. It seems quite sensible so far.
I mostly grokked the process from Allen's flow chart that's around the web, and the Wikipedia article. I stay pretty close to the true GTD way.
A more extended version, if you want to take the time to do it, could include sending yourself an email at the end of the week with what you did, what you plan to do, and your problems. That way you can keep track of what you've accomplished, and your plans. It's pretty helpful if you need to go back and figure out when you did something or where your time's going.
But if you're having trouble with planners and stuff already, just try using a whiteboard.
This "feature" of GTD is what finally got me off of it after years as a religious OmniFocus user. It might be a fantastic system for managers, but most of my tasks require multiple, discrete actions and I don't break them down that way until I start into the task. I schedule tasks in terms of hours and afternoons, GTD seems better suited for tasks in the range of minutes.
This is similar to a problem I have delegating tasks. Not always, but often by the time I detail out things that need to be done, and how to do them, for someone else with less experience, I could have just done the work faster. In the short term this is incredibly frustrating, and I balance that out by telling myself that over the long haul, getting others up to my level on certain tasks will mean I don't have to do it at all. But determining when to delegate and when to do, with real world deadlines involved, is stressful.
Groceries, household chores, personal finance, emails to random people, phone calls, car maitenance. Most of the things on my list I can't do right now anyway, but don't want to forget later.
The end result is that when you are working on the big project that matters, you aren't distracted by constantly thinking "oh crap, I have to remember to pickup bread tonight, and call the DMV and find out why they lost my title, and setup a dentist appointment" (all things on my todo for today), but you can sit there and focus with nothing random coming up in your head.
Developing software and solving problems all day I can't often gauge by looking at a list how long different tasks are going to take or how much they'll make my head hurt.
I can do the straight forward things quickly, I try to stay on top of things I need to do but have been putting off. But I always seem to get stuck and fill up todo lists with thing's I've go no idea how to get off the lists and I don't believe it is as simple as breaking them up into actions.
I don't need a method for managing tasks, I need something to structure and support arbitrary problem solving.
I wouldn't know how to make it, so someone's welcome to run with the idea if they think people might use it.
It bothers me that personal computers replicate the internal chatter of the mind. The web itself seems designed to prey on human weakness, to encourage wilfing through the Internet and short-term gratification, and to discourage learning and the development of self-control.
We could ask, "why not exercise self-control?" Some say there is no such thing as will power. Some insist otherwise. We could embark on a course of meditation, and this may quiet the chatter in our own minds. But it will not address the chatter of the Internet, which replicates the internal chatter of the mind (or at least my mind). Must we assume the burden of spiritual equipoise entirely from within?
The chatter of the Internet is not only distracting for us: our machines expend energy and clock cycles to provide us with extraneous cognitive load. The low signal-to-noise ratio costs them as well.
The domain name filtering service OpenDNS displays a block page at http://block.opendns.com if a site meets the criteria for filtering. This is negative reinforcement. We might provide positive reinforcement if we were to substitute an online to-do list, such as http://rememberthemilk.com, for the block page should we lose focus--to mention a crude first step.
RescueTime looked like a great idea, but for me, it became another example of mechanized negative reinforcement. It's too easy to defeat and ignore. There should be more of a feedback loop with users to provide them with real-time positive reinforcement. It's not enough to reply that a tool is only useful in the right hands. Some attempt has to be made to understand how to develop the right habits or the hands will vote with their feet.
My solution is to use a spreadsheet like Excel (or your choice of GoogleDocs, OpenOffice or other equivalent). I put a cross next to items as I complete them. When I lose interest in my list it tends to atrophy, but at least my tasks and accomplishments are still recorded.
If I come back to my spreadsheet after an extended break and it has atrophied substantially (as in I've completed many tasks without marking them off, priorities have moved away from uncompleted tasks to new unrecorded tasks etc), I simply create a new page and copy across old tasks that I still need to do.
It seems to work quite well for me; it keeps a record of what I've been up to and what I need to do (when I need it to), and works somewhat like agile development iterations without me worrying too much about whether I'm doing it 'correctly'.
SO I might have:
08:30 - Wakeup, check social messages, read cartoons, breakfast. 08:45 - Shower, Clean Teeth, Shave.
Things which need doing in the future go at the bottom then when I'm starting them I can just put the current time on to mark them as current.
At the end of the day I divide the time into useful and non-useful blocks and calculate a ratio: useful time / time wasted.
It has had some unexpected but good effects, for example I cook myself much better meals. I know good food makes a difference to me and I allow myself that as time well spent. Previously I'd have been too worried about not doing X important thing and so have stressed out and wasted time on facebook instead.
I'm planning on making a web-app version of this, I'll do a HN post on it if anyones interested.
The feature set is minimal, but improves occasionally. Its very fast to navigate around with the keyboard shortcuts, and it supports multiple lists. I tend to make long and short term lists in several categories (work, personal, hobby, reading).
Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough - it is always available to me. It doesn't go missing. It doesn't have synch problems. I can get to it from any computer or phone I use. The iPhone integration is good. And its already open in my e-mail window.
The fact that its simple, ubiquitous, and just works, outweighs the advantages of more feature rich systems, for me, in practice.
Also, if you go to: https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig?pli=1 you can get a fullscreen view.
1) Place todo.txt into your dropbox folder. 2) Create a shortcut on your taskbar to the file. 3) Set the file to open on startup.
GTD is overkill. Just do a braindump with Braindump.
I've been using it consistently for 6 months now. It took a couple of hours to go through the huge list of options tweaking it to my liking, but it's worth it.
Create a file (mines called todotoday.txt)
Add the following lines:
Now ---
Waiting -------
Done ----
On the Now area, put everything that needs to be done now. When you're in progress and stop partway through, put "- X" after the entry to signify that it's in progress. Once it's complete, remove the hyphen and move the line to 'Done'. If something stalls or is waiting on someone else, move it to 'Waiting'.
It's simple enough for me to keep track of what I'm doing, what I'm chasing and what I've done.
I might be irrational, but I always estimate problem solving time to be much smaller than what will actually be needed. Even afterwards, I will usually consider much of the problem solving time as time wasted, because I should have been able to do the task much faster.
In the digital age, I use a simple "stuff.txt" file in my dropbox folder, which I manipulate with droptext on my iphone when I'm on the go. It's my notebook in the cloud, and, for me, it sucks least.
What if a system combined the best elements of an automated system with some human responsibility? What if all of your reminders are text messages from human experts on the type of task you need to complete? And your replies actually go back to that person and they are notified of your failures to reply as well.
People really need help in breaking down goals in the smallest possible tasks, the approach GTD really encourages. That should be a strong element and human experts can help with this too.
And your experts can be anywhere in the world these days. Combine GTD and the Four Hour Work Week.
Once the tasks are in the system, I prefer something computer based so I can organize it quickly over paper based. I know a lot of the tasks in the system are not things I'm going to get around to soon, but I'd rather dump them onto a list and stop thinking about them than have it pop up in my head over and over.
I do my weekly reviews on friday and monday. I find it helps to do more frequent, but smaller reviews.
I don't really use any of the advanced features of RTM though (tags, smart search etc).
One of the main reasons is that you say: "I don’t use the system consistently enough to trust it". I found that with remember the milk I have it on my iPhone so it is accessible everywhere and then syncs to a web accesible site - so it doesn't matter if you are in front of a MAC with the software installed or not. For me at least this significantly increased my use of it, and also because I have my phone in meetings I can add actions directly in, saving the time transposing from notpad to system.
You can find out more about this at http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/
For me, that's Things. It's important to have all three interfaces, iPad, iPhone, and Mac -- because it lets me use them in any context.
Since I always have one of these devices, it's superior to pen and paper. I'm more likely to use it, and it all syncs rather nicely.
For example Ctrl-Space checks an item in a bullet list.
Personally I've discovered that a combination of project TODO files, and general TODO files, plus iCal events, plus my brain, is an effective combo for me.
vi todo.txt
(or TextMate, emacs, etc.)
add dates or category or project names, as desired, etc.