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Comment by paul_f | Hacker News Reader

Having tried everything, nothing works better than 5x8 yellow pads. Write down everything you need to do. Draw a line thru when done. Every few days, rebuild the list. Everything has to be on one page, or there are too many to-do's, and you can delete ones that just don't make the cut.

No technology, just pen and paper.

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I have boxes of those 5 subject half size bound notebooks you can get at the dollar store. All filled with notes and doodles from throughout my career.

I’ve tried to switch to a digital form but always end back up at pen and paper.

Edit: well had boxes of notes, they got thrown out on the last move

Agree.

Some things that help appear stupid. There's a psychological value in that crossing out action. Someone told me a few years ago to draw a little box next to the item and put a check mark when done (instead of crossing out). Weirdly, it seemed even more satisfying.

I think the real truth in all this is something simple like a written list means you spend less overhead curating your work and therefore have more bandwidth to actually do it -- coupled with the "small wins" of crossing out or ticking off the item.

I noticed that too. I try to go full digital and abstract.. and now I often go back to the usual vintage material/physical habits. Something about moving/touching/seeing/filing changes how your brain notices the event.

This would be a good idea if I could read my own handwriting.

I get this works for some, but never has for me. I have never been a notebook type of person.

I love your general approach and very similar to a digital version I use.

You could work on improving your handwriting. You might notice other benefits.

I read about one person whose math comprehension increased dramatically when they improved their penmanship; something about a mental link between the ability to visualize the formulas in their mind and the ability to create/visualize them on paper.

I'm not the OP, but I'm on a similar situation.

I can draw formulas quite well. I can also draw text quite well if I'm drawing it. But my cursory handwriting is so bad that I often can't read it.

I don't think it's worth putting time into improving it on the case I need to write some long-form text by hand. There just isn't enough value int there. (But then, here I am, spending time on HN...)

Not OP. I don't see how handwriting is better. I'm already working on the laptop, notepad app is almost integrated with everything else, I can access it in miliseconds with keyboard shortcuts. I can create a similar list in a simple notepad app, i.e.:

x Task 1

x Task 2

- Task 3

- Task 4

Very true. I have been thinking of getting a white board. Thanks for the encouragement.

This might sound weird, but check your diet if your handwriting is shaky/cryptic or mentally anguishing to perform. I looked into this upon recommendation of someone else, and now I always notice when mine is worse after certain meals. Not advocating for one particular diet.

Thank you. Valid point. I currently stay away from dairy and wheat. I immediately notice a difference with those foods (dairy = sinuses, wheat = stomach bloat).

The issue is I cant write fast enough. I type near 80 word per minute. I am so familiar with the keyboard, when I go to write it needs to be for special occasion (letter for my mom or something).

That makes perfect sense. I'm a fast typist and OmniFocus user, myself.

This is what I do for day-to-day objectives. But for things that involve copy/pasting or long term objectives I don't want to forget I also have a Workflowy document.

Workflowy is pretty nice, it's a simple org mode tree structure that works on phones and has intuitive keyboard shortcuts.

I had one Dropbox Paper document for years called "Next Steps". It was literally just a freeform list of things I needed to get done for the project. Every day I would expand the list and cross off/ checkmark what had been done. It got pretty massive.

Now I have a company and a team so we use an issue tracker, which I find to be much much heavier but it's easier to use across multiple people.

Oh man, found my spirit animal. I tried recreating the same system on a white board next to my desk to save paper, but it just doesn't work without rewriting the list from scratch regularly (though I must have smaller tasks, because I'll rewrite 1-2 times per day).

I keep trying digital tools, get excited at first, to later realize I went back to paper without even noticing the switch back... Came to the conclusion no digital tool will ever be better than paper. It's a matter of principle, not how innovative we can be in digital.

I use Sublime Text but same concept.

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