[Closed] Work life: Keeping track of tasks, post it notes, prioritising and forgetting.

Watching with interest...

A4 spiral bound pad on my desk used as a mouse mat. Everything goes on there. In red if it's important. Cross it out once it's done. It's old school, but it's visual, and it's always there.

A hard back notebook. Take it everywhere with you. Write everything in it.

I draw little tick boxes next to tasks and tick them off when they're done. I review the recent pages every couple of days and make a new list of the uncompleted tasks.

People get to  know that if they want me to do something that I need to write it in the book.

Oldskool but it works for me.

We use Asana at work - very easy to create and assign tasks, create groups, you get daily email updates etc. Free version available for small groups.

https://asana.com/pricing

I use Trello for this. From every level of my personal day to day tasks to yearly plan for my group. Works really well.

I send myself emails with the subject 'to do' and at the end of each day I'll make a to do list for the following day.

I've got a spreadsheet that I use, each 'project' has it's own tab with tasks in there, dates they need to be done by, completed date etc. I write notes in there as well about anything of note that I can refer back to e.g. sent email to supplier regarding xxx on xxx date.

I have an 18 month diary, week to view on left page, notes on the other.

Deadlines & appointments get written in the week section, todo lists on the notes bit. Todo is split into BAU, parked, and the two projects I've got a role in at the moment.

I run the diary from Jan-Dec, so I have a whole 6 months worth of pages for anything that needs more notes.

Each week outstanding stuff is copied to the next week, so I can re-assess if something hasn't been marked as done; if it actually needs doing or can be parked.

I use Trello for this. From every level of my personal day to day tasks to yearly plan for my group. Works really well.

We moved from Trello as Asana is more powerful, but I guess for an individual it is a good call.

A4 spiral bound pad on my desk used as a mouse mat. Everything goes on there. In red if it’s important. Cross it out once it’s done. It’s old school, but it’s visual, and it’s always there.

This ^^

Very oldsxhool, But astonishingly effective.

Laptops stay in situ, the bible is carried everywhere everyday..

Sounds like you need a better/more process in regards to how you work and how you book in work.

We use Trello with the following columns:

Won't - stuff that has been in your backlog so long it'll never get done

Blocked - Stuff that you need input from someone or something else to continue

To do -  Your backlog of stuff to do. Most important at the top

Doing - The thing you're doing right now. You can only do one thing at once! This is properly important. You can only have one thing in this column at once!

Done / For Signoff - if your work needs signing off or otherwise reviewing. Otherwise acts as a record of the work you've done this week. Archive at the start of each week.

Share your board with your managers/bosses/etc.  Tell them when they want you to do something you need to create a ticket in 'to-do'. If it's more important that what you're currently doing, show them you moving out the current ticket from 'Doing' into the backlog.

The backlog is how you keep track of things to do and ensures you don't forget anything.

I use a combination of post-it notes, notepad and setting calendar reminders in Outlook. I usually still forget stuff though if I get pulled several different ways in a day (note to senior management - I can't prioritise if you say everything is high priority...).

I do urgent stuff as it comes in. Everything else gets put in a big pile on my desk. If it's important, someone will come looking for it. Every few months I turf the big pile of shit in the bin and start again.

Another old-school user here:

I have two notebooks, one (black) for notes, and one (red) for to-do list.

When I go through my email each morning, I either reply/action immediately, or write in in the red book as a to do (along with a due date).  Anything that takes more than 2 minutes gets written as an action, to avoid me getting bogged-down in my inbox.

After doing, that I prioritise them (1,2,3 etc)

In meetings, I take notes in the black book, then in the wrapping-up I confirm the identified actions, and write them in the red book.

I cross stuff out as I go, then at the end of each day, I carry forward anything I haven't done to the next page, for tomorrow

Old school - but works for me (Project Manager)

edit:  I switched to using a separate book for actions, because I found they were getting lost among my notes/doodles

I use Google calendar for all sorts of reminders, diary alerts etc. I just make note in my phone there and then.

+1 Trello.  Very smart solution and worth the moderate learning curve.

Sounds like you need to work on a priority system first and foremost. You cannot organize tasks and to-do`s until you have a method of setting priority.

Once you have this in place there are lots of systems available for just recording what needs to be completed. High priorities get worked on first, but you will also need a system in place to ensure the low priority stuff gets dealt with and does not sit at the bottom of the pile permanently.

I have tried; post its, paper lists, OneNote etc etc. I cant seem to find a good method of keeping track of tasks

This would suggest it's not the method that's the issue, more how you apply it. Why did those other methods fail?

Diary for me with tasks written in and ticked off when done.  If only I could persuade all my colleagues to look in the diary!

Trello. I have a backlog, priority list, doing and done. Works really well. All of my emails go into four folders: back burner, action, waiting and done. My inbox is kept empty.

This has been the kick up the arse to jump into Trello for personal tasks. We use a very similar system for tracking team tasks.

I generally like the Getting Things Done system but where I (and many others also, it seems) fail is not having the system in place to go back and review. I try to keep half an hour at the start and end of a week just to make sure stuff doesn't fall through the cracks. Clear inbox down, carve out time for the big stuff, etc.

+1 Trello. Very smart solution and worth the moderate learning curve.

There was a big push at work onto Trello. I hate it, it just doesn't work for me at all. Some of the staff who look after regional teams find it very good indeed for keeping track of what geographically diverse staff are doing, allocating tasks etc but for me (again, a very reactive role) it's just not worth the time and effort.

I do the big red book thing, lists of things that can be picked up, crossed out, re-written. Works for me and simplicity is good.

(note to senior management – I can’t prioritise if you say everything is high priority…).

^^ Very much this.

Categories are as important as the Tasks (as mentioned)

Complex - High, Short Term/Medium/Long inception/inflight/remediation/build/report/escalation/projected

Complex - Medium ^^

Complex - Low ^^

And so on for other categories

Not saying it’s an easy process but you need clear thoughts to apply to the problem statements in hand.

I'm another fan of the old school note pad for the big ticket stuff, for things not already tagged electronically.  I also use One Note and Outlook calendar (mostly for one off large items that I need to sit and do uninterrupted where I block out time and if I don't do it it gets moved) and flags for emails for longer term stuff and day to day note keeping while in the office.

The notebook always travels with me (even on holiday) and the laptop does mostly but the notebook is convenient, I don't need to boot it up to check my action list for example.

I like the week to view diary suggestions above too.

Post Its and paper clips.

Obviously.

A white board sat behind me, has the added advantage that I can write a load of shit on it and everyone else will think I'm busy.

^^

Iread that as “I write in shit” and choked on my coffee👍👌

Trello, on web app and phone.

There are more advanced options sure, but for tracking my own stuff, it does a simple job well.

Have a read of David Allen's book "Getting things done" and come up with a system based on that. There are guides for how to implement the system in One Note, Trello, Evernote, paper etc

If you don't have a good system for prioritising and categorising tasks and projects no clever app will help.

I do urgent stuff as it comes in. Everything else gets put in a big pile on my desk. If it’s important, someone will come looking for it. Every few months I turf the big pile of shit in the bin and start again.

I do this but with my email Inbox...

everything on outlook

use the different colours to block out time/travel/make notes - everything in one place - emails can attach - contacts

Any new task gets a slot - I can move anything lagging to a new spot

Overall tasks get a week spread at the top of the page so its in my eyeline

Grey out when I finished it - charts progress

Constantly can search/track everything I've ever done

I often go to places 1 time only so can transfer the address to my phone and get direction and eta driving/walking/public transport

Everyone else can see when I start work/finish work/Hols/ and knows when the can call me or not

My Mrs and Track everything via meeting request - not romantic as such but we never argue about 'well you didn't tell me' or 'I never agreed'

great for filling my time sheet

plan all my personal life on the same calendar -gigs and ticket numbers - band rehearsals - gallery visits and tickets/directions - even notify myself when I'm due to finish so I don't sped a second more at work than I need to

Perfect

I write notes on the back of unwanted sheets of A4 paper then stack them on the left of my desk then move them across to work on the project then shred them when I've completed the task.

Some excellent ideas here, thanks for sharing.

The problem I found with post it notes is that I cant keep a log of that particular task's elements/actions as they grow.

OneNote just just does not work for re-organising where things are.

The best thing I have found is the big note book that so many of you favour too..

Trello is looking good so far too, using the columns you guys have mentioned above, I am entering stuff in there now and its no wonder why I'm getting in a mess with so much stuff on.

Throughout the day I will add to my ‘To Do’ list.

end of day I will cross the ones I have done off; and those I haven’t completed will be written on my ‘To Do’ list for the following day ...

I use trello too.  separate boards for work, family&finances, home renovation and one for.everything else

works for me

Notbooks are good if nobody needs oversight or any idea what you are up to or to work out what you are doing when you are not about. Great if you have full autonomy.

The online boards for teams is a great approach, though it can only help you do stuff not make you organised.

We used project notes/lists in Slack for each project and everyone could see where they were at etc. but trello looks better for bigger teams.

The other way to deal is prompt delegation, no point letting something sit on your desk if somebody else needs to deal with it.

OneNote just just does not work for re-organising where things are.

The best thing I have found is the big note book that so many of you favour too..

How on earth is OneNote not appropriate for reorganising but a paper notebook is?  It's the very definition of a paper notebook that you can reorganise.

Notbooks are good if nobody needs oversight or any idea what you are up to or to work out what you are doing when you are not about. Great if you have full autonomy.

Boom’tish*

Board meetings are a little more complex, but same approach and you’d be surprised at just how un-organised some Senior Stakeholders are.

I thing I like about my 'To do' column rule above is that it create a very obvious visual illustration of work priority and throughput/load.

It sounds silly, but when you show someone you physically moving the current 'Doing' ticket back into the backlog and then putting their new knee-jerk ticket into 'Doing', it makes them question whether their ticket really is more important after all - as suddenly there is a resourcing question/impact attached to commissioning work.

Fair enough if something is more important - the world changes and moves - but everyone has to acknowledge you can only do one thing at once.

I'm going to go off-piste and not recommend Trello, but instead Todoist.  Less free-form, more structured.

Getting Things Done is a great methodology but I prefer to use a ‘lite’ Take Back your Life approach (Sally McGhee).

I use a system that’s a hybrid of both but absolutely everything goes into outlook and if it needs to be followed up on, it goes into the calendar and is categorised (using only a half a dozen categories).

Its a a great system and works pretty well. My job can be very interrupt driven. By being organised I can focus on the long term goals and strategy while still being able to juggle other stuff.

Another top read (or listen in my case) is Covey’s 7 Habits book. Helps you to focus on important stuff.

Outlook for things that have dates (I do a lot of experiments where things need doing at set intervals, sometimes over years). Otherwise I have a word document with long term tasks. Each night before I go home I'll write in a notebook what I need to do the next day. Can't take electonics to many places so a notebook helps me keep track so I don't miss meetings.

Keeping on top of minutes, project plans etc. really helps. If you leave things in a tidy state it is much easier to pick them back up again.

I like Todoist - http://www.todoist.com - I introduced Mrs BWD - who is a terrifying admin machine in her professional life - to it and she loves it also in a slightly worrying way. Do not allow your partner to set up a shared domestic projects page though, it destroyed my enjoyment of the app in a matter of days.

I think all this stuff depends on how you're wired though, some people work best with a definitive diary and a pen, others like to boot stuff around and add shared notes and stuff. What I do like about Todoist is that it seems quite flexible in the way it works, so you can use it in different ways depending on how you function. It also works across devices and platforms.

There's a free version so you can try the basics, but the good stuff is subscription.

Teamup.  The free version lets you use 8 diarys and you can configure how you like.   I use it to plan some warehouse space, logistics/my own time and note other stuff.    I share it with other folk so they know how busy I am.

I am trying Trello too but Teamup is actually a better design for my role.   I have loads of small missions a day that change very quickly.  Trello suits longer term stuff.

Slight hijack : can someone tell me if Trello is free to use for private use, or do I need to pay a subscription?

Trello with WIP limits and a physical kanban on the fridge door with the small post-its ( thanks Flashy 😉) for family stuff.

The beauty of Trello is in its simplicity. It does 1 thing well - but with integrations, it can used with all sorts of other useful stuff too.

badger - there is a free version

I like Wunderlist and Todoist, but now I need to share it in Microsoft Teams (which I really like) so increasingly I’m using Planner and OneNote.

Planner lets you create Buckets (task lists) and move the tasks around within it, create time schedules and assign tasks to others (if that’s your thing). Browsers and iOS apps both work well, and I think it’s really good for what I need.

The biggest issue with it is anybody can mark tasks as complete, or delete them all together.  I think that’s an issue and I think they are working on permissions for a future release. If it’s just for you though, it’s great.

Kind of OT to this but also relevant given the OP's complaint that due to the reactiveness and ever shifting priorities, he was getting in the sh!t for not doing things...

My place of work used to be very much like this. What we realised, is that those decision-makers (managers) who are causing the reactiveness and causing priority switching are basically holding *you* accountable for decisions that *they* are making.

Sometimes I think this was unintended, but I think some certain individuals knew exactly what they were doing.

Anyway, I think as well as being as efficient as possible in managing tasks you've also got to understand and take control of the cultural situation.

The way we have dealt with this is to make it very clear (in writing) to the decision-makers what the implications of them switching priorities is. This is usually that they are taking a risk in some way.

I work in software development, so often the decision-makers would apply pressure to move onto something new without properly completing something. So for an (extreme) example lets say we still had the application of data encryption to credit card data yet to do, when a priority change came in. We would state somethign like:

You do realise, that by changing priorities we have yet to complete data encryption tasks. This is a security risk and if left unresolved then we may be PCI compliance regulations, and we may have our license to operate removed? Are you willing to state that you are approving the tolerance of this risk by leaving the encryption unresolved?

This definitely tipped the balance of power 🙂 If the risk materialises then they knew about it, and it's their fault not yours. They are accountable for their own decisions.

Often though there are quite sensible (less extreme!) risks to take. The point it that the decision makers who change priority have to know they are taking the risk, and approving tolerance of the risk, by diverting you onto other work.

A key point is that you have to get very good at identifying and articulating risks (hopefully as part of some mutually agreed framework) without wasting too much time.

Not sure what line of work you are in but maybe/hopefully you can see parallels and find this useful

Trello is free for personal or professional use but with very limited integrations and <10MB attachments.

Google Keep if you like post it notes!

Like most, I've developed my own coping mechanism to minimise the number of balls dropped. Like you, I've had a couple of roles in recent years which covers a wide range of responsibilities for which I was directly responsible (appraisals and career management for circa 110 personnel, equipment care for a couple £m of equipment, organising adventure training, organising exercises, managing deployments etc) The only way I managed was as follows:

Emails: Every email got triaged and flagged using a colour coding system ie. each of the above categories had a different colour; the most important also got flagged as red. Tick off/strip out the dross and then sort the remainder by category, keeping on top of the most important ones. Completed emails got archived for approx 6 months in case someone comes back to me about something I've long forgotten.

Random tasks: I use a Moleskine diary with a week to view on the left hand page and notes on the right. The notes page is split into relevant sections with items to do in each along with the deadline for each. If the task doesn't had a deadline I give it a nominal one, after which if the task is not complete, it gets deleted. At the end of each week, the list gets carried forward after I have reviewed my progress and binned the things that no longer matter.

Personal / family: my wife and I use apple's calendar on our phones to sync all personal events across devices. We also use Wunderlist to manage tasks. She can input tasks, as can I and then we can tick them off when done. The most useful thing I find is that tasks (ie. renew insurance, dog worming tablets etc) can bet set to re-occur automatically so you almost don't have to remember them. Finally, I import my work diary from outlook into apple calendar on a weekly basis so that both my wife and I can see what my work commitments are, when I'll be home late/early etc etc.

Written down, it all seems very convoluted and complex but it's actually really simple and effective!

I use the post it notes on MS office, just one and have a never ending shit list- a list of things to do and i delete each thing  as i go.

The discipline is adding stuff and the second the fire fighting stops open up the shit list and sort something.

will post sensible answer on return from holiday. not.

trello for our usage just made more work to do.

I have Trello for personal stuff, but find it a bit clunky, but maybe that's just me?

I also have a clear inbox policy - delete anything I don't need, flag anything that needs an action, deal with it, import to our IT system if necessary, then delete. A full inbox is the worst thing for productivity, feeling swamped. Get stuff cleared and out of the way.

I have Trello for personal stuff, but find it a bit clunky, but maybe that’s just me?

I tried it for a while a few years back. The auto-ageing thing pissed me off, so I stopped using it.

You can turn off card ageing.

Or do what we do, and install the pirate ageing plugin so it makes your cards go like old pirate scrolls. Yarrr!

Another trelloist here, just simple lists of jobs to do (in various contexts) and easy enough to add a job from the widget rather than having to open the app. Occasionally pull up the web page for a major re-sorting. Doesn't work well offline (IME) which may annoy some.

Also have a simple list app on the phone but that's mostly for food shopping though it can do jobs too. Not as easy for moving things between lists but better offline.

As for clearing email inbox, I just have a onebox approach instead. I delete trash, flag stuff that needs dealing with and the rest just sits there. Search does the rest when I want to look up something.

As as a result, email management takes literally zero time for me. I have all my email back to about 2012 when I last changed account (and took up this practice).

(Emails with massive attachments get purged occasionally, eg people sending multiple iterations of ppt files)

I use a day view A4 diary, it goes everywhere with me and has enough room to structure my day and add things as and when they come in.

I use my outlook calendar, added benefit is if I have blocked off some time to complete a task, it shows as busy so people don't tend to book meetings and calls.

You could always take my bosses approach and just ignore something until it becomes urgent and somebody shouts, then get defensive and say we cant do things with the budget and staffing before quietly shafting one of us with the task to get something done in about 1/5th of the time needed.

Google Keep is simple, flexible, syncs across all devices and you can share lists. I find it useful for packing lists, shopping, etc, because it's handy to be able to add or tick stuff off on the phone as I wander around.

Google Inbox reminders are also useful. You can easily schedule and snooze them.

Oh Crap!

What should I be doing now ???

👎🤷‍♀️💃🌈

I'm in a similar position, I have to react to problems throughout the day but also proactively plan ahead, the sort of planning that is quite easy with no interruptions but if you keep getting calls with problems the whole day goes to shit.

I print out a weekly planner now, the teams tasks are listed at the top with side for updates, at the bottom the is space to write a 'to do' list and reminders. Anything not attended to gets transferred to the following day and at the end of the week, it gets stashed in a shelf so I can refer back to stuff.

Plus I have lots of post it notes, try to deal with immediate issues whilst on the phone, and move a lot of emails into my outlook calender with a reminder set.

Several of my colleagues use One Note but I've never really looked into it.

I've seen that we have MS Teams as part of out Office 365 Offering, it also includes MS Planner which is a Trello copy/inspired by version.

I'm starting to set it up as a small scale start for my team at the moment, could cover a few things

I like Priority Matrix

When the pressure is on (i.e. now, I have just started a new job. Until I get into the swing of how the new job operates I need the discipline.

I gives an always visible 4 quadrant matrix, can have more than one matrix (e.g. 'work', 'personal' etc)

Syncs across all devices and platforms.

I like.

Several of my colleagues use One Note but I’ve never really looked into it.

I'm firmly of the opinion that OneNote is one of the greatest products MS has ever produced.  I have my life in it, it's essentially an online backup of my brain.

some common themes in above - take time to up date to do (whatever you use) and diary stuff to ensure essentials aren't missed - hard but i found working to cycles useful weekly/monthly/quarterly for essential tasks  - pencil out the diary in advance - yep half the day / half the week will disappear with urgent appearing stuff and allow for that but will hope focus on the stuff that counts and as to that remember the old saying - "do whats important, not what is urgent" - if only achieve that 50% of the time that's better being reactive to crap stuff 100% of the time - depends a bit on the culture you are in and size/style of organisation but can you approach a senior person who seems to get stuff done/be really on top of their role and ask them for some regular mentoring?