One of my biggest struggles right now is managing my ever growing list of Shit To Do That Doesn't Have A Deadline. Or stuff that has a deadline of "by (some vague time that's further away than next week)", which is functionally the same thing
Do y'all have any better strategies for this? I just have a Todo notepad in my phone that becomes a black hole dumpster fire, and it's not sustainable.
@hazelweakly I'm currently on Todoist and use only made-up due dates. If something is really unimportant it gets none, if it’s something I’d like to do but is neither important nor urgent I move the due date far in the future, and the more urgent/important it is the less I move it forward. It kind of works, but I wish Todoist would have the concept of Estimate, to help me see more quickly how much is realistic today
@hazelweakly Honestly it's a lot of trial and error. I have a widget on my homescreen that I see everytime I unlock my phone or my ipad for my Todo app. Everytime I start my computer, my todo app autostarts. Same thing with my calendar, I set multiple alarms for my events and they ring on all of my devices including my watch. It's almost like the more annoying it is the more I'm likely to pay attention to it. But it has to be a service that can sink across devices so I use Todoist and Google Cal
@hazelweakly a coworker used a note taking app and would just constantly add notes for whatever they were working on. It solved the problem of keeping something up to date, context switch notes, and items with less notes are a good indicator of lagging items. Didn't need reminders because they were always in the notes.
Too much for me though, I don't have a consistent energy level for that. I was using flags with arbitrary re-assess dates in email. If I didn't solve it by the time that's due on a day I would move the due date or solve it right then before unflagging.
@hazelweakly ask me again how in 5 years when I've figured this out. 🙃
Right now its been:
work stuff: daily notes in obsidian listing what i've done and plan to do (carry un done things forward each day).
personal stuff: some combo of Alarmed on iOS and google tasks.
But mostly during this burnout recovery phase I've been usually declaring bankruptcy a lot / just following my gut
@hazelweakly I use paper on my desk for most short-term stuff, go through about a sheet a week. just scribbles on printer paper, no system, just put stuff down and look at it a couple times a day. for longer term stuff I find the Google Tasks app (Android) is dead simple, fine, and integrates with calendar too. I have the app widget on too, when I swipe right on home screen. interesting feedback, that 😅
@hazelweakly
also anything I can get done right away I do. with practice it gets more automatic. this eliminates like 90% of todos. do or delegate. there is no defer, only forgetting
@hazelweakly@renice I think it's kinda comical how every damned sample app in the universe is a to-do list, and I can't quite get exactly what I want. I'm now "accustomed" to Google Tasks. It took me some time to realize that I didn't have to say when, I just had to say what, and that I could drag and drop them around to set ordering.
@renice@hazelweakly at home (doesn't fly well in an office) I use
3" wide masking tape on my desk as a notepad, so it's always there and can't go away, but if I need to bring it elsewhere I peel it off and stick it to the wall of whatever I'm doing
@NireBryce@renice ok I'm not gonna lie, that's pretty genius actually. I never would've thought of masking tape but it totally works for solving the "where did I put that paper" problem that I always have
@hazelweakly
Yeah, I have a similar problem with the bigger projects that last months. No great suggestions for how to plan & keep track of these, just my sympathies. Rooting for you!
@hazelweakly
I recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen.
It's an organizing system that removes the stress by getting it all written down, so you don't have that constant fear that you're forgetting something you're supposed to do.
@hazelweakly ugh this is a constant nightmare - I have a set of slow-drifting mutant habits to deal with it, but sometimes that falls over too. Basically it's todo lists with project containers with project containers timeboxed in N slots per day, partially pre-allocated at the start of a week to align with deadlines, with space for "magic shit" that just appears as per usual. If a timeslot doesn't get executed, push to next available in the week, track the push counts 😬
@hazelweakly I will often select an arbitrary date for those things just to get them onto my calendar rather than the black hole to do list (and mine is exactly that, just like yours). I pick a date that doesn't have anything or has little on it, so that this can be the primary task for that day.
I will admit it doesn't always work - when I get there, I sometimes boot it out to another date, but I've at least thought of it and made a conscious decision rather than just losing sight of it.
@jtth That seems really cool! I'm really digging the intentionality vs productivity focus.
It does seem like it's a one person show? And I'm really not sure how research backed the approach is. Lastly, well, absolutely everything about this, uh, about page is just making me have Questions: https://complice.co/about
But reservations aside, I do think there's a lot of potential in the underlying concept + I think there's room for more diverse approachs to task organization and work prioritization.
@hazelweakly Mostly a one-person show, yeah. The research is so-so; lots of pop psych references but generalizing basic research to an actual application is fraught no matter what. I have some issues with some of the things Malcolm has been into in the past, but I dig the app, and he's never been rude or mean to me in the ~8 years I've been using it, on and off. I'm using it now, and enjoying it. Just an idea!
@chad ahh but how annoying and/or intrusive are the todoist reminders? Are they "this will keep vibrating and yelling at you until you look at your phone and acknowledge the thing manually"?
One issue I have with google calendar notifications is that sometimes I just don't even notice I got it, and sometimes I don't get them, and sometimes I do but it buzzed for like 2 seconds and doesn't stay popped up on the screen so it disappears without me having to acknowledge it.
@hazelweakly yeah I almost hedged my recommendation on that note. I don’t know, but I bet they’ll fall short for you. You can get an email, which is persistent, but maybe not noisy
This sounds decently similar to what I do when I'm "on top of it" (read: I rarely start my day by actually reviewing a todo list or anything and I really should, but when I do, it helps)
Here's some things that don't really work for me currently:
Calendar appointments: the notifications aren't "intrusive" enough and it doesn't deal with the concept of ambiguous completion. I also can't easily find stuff to opportunistically complete early
Phone alarms: works well but it needs a time and can't set the alarm more than a week in advance
"Hey Google set a reminder for ...": who the fuck is this feature for. I've literally never had it actually successfully notify me. What???
@hazelweakly For things where I want reminders, I use the Any.do app. The reminders pop up on your phone screen and you have to consciously snooze it before it will disappear. You can snooze for 15 min/ 1hr/ 3hrs/ pick a custom time. Works a lot better for me than other reminder systems.
@hazelweakly It only vibrates + makes a sound when it pops up, but it stays on your screen until you dismiss or snooze it.
I can't remember if I've tried todoist (I've tried so many to do apps... 🙄), so I can't give a good comparison on that one specifically. I do know any.do is the only one I've tried that has this notification/snooze scheme, and it works for me.
Here's some screenshots to get a better idea. The 2nd one is the options that show if you select Snooze.
I've tried Trello and Kanban style stuff before but for actually having notifications go off on my phone in a way that I reliably act on them, I basically need my phone to vibrate continuously for 10+ minutes and take up the entire screen while doing so.
Having the same "fuck you do this now" experience on my laptop would be baller, especially if it magically didn't happen during video meetings.
Basically it feels like nothing out there has studied "how to deal with time-blind people" 😭
@ceejbot I have unironically considered something pager duty like. But the problem is I don't always need to "ack"/respond immediately or in order, so it's really more like I want to run a bunch of queues and DEFINITELY GET NOTIFIED of shit in the queue but also munge tasks around in them so that I can actually make progress
or... something...
But I've wondered if "on-call paging" myself would work and kinda think it might?
@hazelweakly one of the things that might help, is to have a test admits the day (short nap, walk, etc.) And then do something from the list. If it can be done by priority, than much better. As for everything, it works when it becomes usual thing for the day.
@hazelweakly I've had success on macOS by using Keyboard Maestro to fully fill my screen with text with certain triggers. I've also used different running timers help me get back on track.
I've found that I need novelty to make the alerts stick. Seeing the same alert over several says makes it lose its impact and I subconsciously turn it off without addressing why it went off.
@chontorres That is definitely a thing I struggle with too. Having my brain go "oh it's the thing, we see that a lot, let's just turn it off" is ... so annoying
@hazelweakly I use the InYourFace app on MacOS which puts up a full screen takeover with the zoom or whatever call link right there to click on. It’s good for reminding me when I’m writing or coding.
It seems like it's only for calendar notifications (and some apple notifications too)? But I have an android phone so I don't have full integration there
That said, this is definitely the kinda computer-based notification thing that I need.
Follow-up: The proliferation of exclusive messaging applications, DMs, group-chat-things, etc., that don't interoperate cleanly with one another is borderline debilitating.
This is, somehow, deeply related.
I would extremely 200% not mind if the government(s) stepped in and required all chat and community communication devices to provide full interop between each other. No idea how the fuck that would work, but I need it
@hazelweakly The problem used to exist but these things were only protocols, so we had apps that supported MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, etc. at once.
Now they’re whole complex platforms. I can’t see any other app than Slack or Discord do Slack or Discord.
@hazelweakly the thing that I've been working on that's worked best, tho not great, is a combination of the Eisenhower Matrix and the eat the frog method of prioritization.
I go thru my lists and tag everything based on whether it is urgent/important/both/neither and then based on that prioritization I pick one task and just focus on it until it's done, then add any new action items that were generated to the backlog, and repeat.
@hazelweakly This really has helped me invest more in long-term goals but it's still a constant slog to focus up and invest in trudging thru the blackhole that is the backlog.
@hazelweakly@yaah I do a similar thing but also give a bump to small things that can be completed quickly and never thought about again, and things that are exciting or interesting enough to give positive emotional momentum that I can use to hack away at important but tedious tasks.
@hazelweakly I've struggled a lot with reminders not being intrusive enough. What's worked for me is having my Google Home speak reminders out loud in an Italian accent (why not). I have it hooked into Home Assistant so for example when I go to bed I plug in my phone to charge. This triggers the Google Home to speak "Remember to brush your teeth." It's funny and actually helps
@cynical13 not everything is at work though! And even for work stuff, for me, most due dates aren't set in stone, and often I'm the person setting them or rearranging them, so it's important to be able to calibrate work for the whole rest of everyone else I'm working with too.
(That goes for a lot of professional stuff outside of work too. OSS work, board meetings, conference planning, speaking, research, etc)
It's a great solution for very linear IC ticket-based work though.
@atax1a I forget to look at the whiteboard and can't sync it to my phone to have it remind me to do thingy so I'll hyperfocus for like 8 hours and fuck it all up
But! I do like the concept a lot and will probably do something like this for some things. What do you mean by time-space, here? That particularly seems interesting to me
@hazelweakly part of externalizing it onto a whiteboard is to both break that pattern (get yourself into a routine of checking it) and also to provide a scratchpad for when that pattern happens.
anyway ,as far as 'time-space' goes, we divide the whiteboard into 2x rows of 7 days each starting Monday. Starting Monday is important because it physically aligns the week-end into a contiguous block, instead of starting Sunday and having "one rest day at the start of the week" and "one rest day at the end of the week"
I definitely feel you on the externalizing it aspect. That's something I've found is important (although I continually want better re-integration tools once I externalize things, like notes or reading material)
@atax1a i murdered my last bonsai because i had to put it out of reach of the cats and also forgot to actually take it out of the nursery box and put it in a real pot
meantime we have a venus flytrap, and we have trained ourselves to make sure to water it at least every other day, to check it to make sure it isn't blooming, and to occasionally feed it a bug.
@hazelweakly our gf was like "i hear venus flytraps are difficult to take care of" and idk we find Vicki pretty easy: she only drinks distilled water and only eats bugs and needs to be put in the light.
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