How to make sure you’re not forgetting anything? One Note? Notion? Templates are extremely helpful if you can share them. I’m just constantly scared that an ask that was made during a meeting doesn’t get written down and then completely forgotten by the entire organization. I want to be a planner, but I don’t know the best place to start.
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I use a notebook. Went through a few tools like todoist and trello and goodnote to hand write on iPad but eventually I came back to using a notebook.
Each week will have a fresh page dedicated to it. Then next week I’ll migrate the items from previous week to the new page. Looks like notebook gang is strong.
One more thing to add is to find a nice notebook and pen that you enjoy using. Make sure you like the binding, the paper material and the line print pattern. I’ve gone through more than 10s of the exact same one. The pen also must be comfortable for you personally. Don’t cheap out on your bread and butter. Notebook and pen for me is more important than Jira.
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I also use paper notes. Separate section on page for every meeting, check boxes as to dos as I take meetings that are easily visible scanning. Every week I forward all last weeks todo’s to a single page, add in any from the week I just worked to it, and cross out any that got done as I do this.
I have a little system of a check mark for tasks completed, a circle and crossed line or strike through for tasks abandoned, and an arrow forward for tasks punted to a future week.
It helps me a lot, but I do long for a ctrl F interaction. May try some paper/digital combo some day, but I’ve been burned on too many useless gadgets lately so I’m pretty hesitant to replace my paper notes again. I do about a moleskin a quarter. I put beginning and ending dates on the spine and keep them so I can look back on notes from any given day pretty easily. I have a super power when I have my notes, I can remember a lot from my my meetings, without them I’m a goldfish.
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Yes, notebook is sooo powerful for meetings. I can easily spam entire page with both key points and my own thoughts, which comes in super handy when I later on discuss with another party on the same meeting. People are really easily impressed by that.
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Also I use a notebook and mechanical pen. I’ve used Trello, Asana, Notion, Coda, Google Keep, even writing myself notes in Slack and setting reminders. Alas! nothing works for me as well as good old notebook writing. Helps to memorize the task, and often add context in a way I don’t do when I’m typing.
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I use an todo list in notion. Game changer for me was 3 things:
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Move from Kanban rolling prior to scrum style and commit to tasks for a day or a focus time blocker. So I have a backlog of tasks that I keep prioritized. Then I have a separate area where I drag tasks for a time frame to get them done. Set 25 min alarms to keep on track.
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Add a duration column for your tasks. This will tell how much time you’ll invest. Will also help with (1) as using a sum function you can see whether you over commit or not. Will also learn with learning to estimate better.
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Use the LNO framework from Shreyas Doshi. This is to define the level of ambition for tasks and helps define the amount of care and time invested. More a good exercise when prioritizing and before starting. For eg. “I’ll deliberately do this quick and dirty” vs “I’ll do this really well and if it takes longer lll even book more time with me for it”.
1 + 2 are very scrummy - so weird as for teams I’m not the biggest fan of it. But for personal tasks it feels much more clear and binding in a positive way.
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Personally I use Notion to manage things. There’s GTD template on Notion as well or you could watch Ali Abdaal for a quick tutorials.
Having said that, I do found that a table with a line of post-it notes, each contains 1 task, is the most helpful way for me to tackle the urgent ones. I’ll see them whenever I pick up my coffee anyway, so my brain keeps nagging me to complete those first.