Ask HN: People working remotely, how do you plan your workday?

24 points by mmvs 6 years ago | 16 comments

Do you use any special tools or anything like that?

The problem I'm facing is when my team grew up, I get a lot of requests to check something, help, etc. Sometimes I forget about either of those requests because I don't do any planning (e.g work on a task for 7 hrs, then PR reviews/requests for 1 hr) and the requests get lost. I use slack reminder bot very frequently but this doesn't work well for communications performed outside of slack and neither have structured to-do list

cik 6 years ago |

I sit down every single night and plan the upcoming day by making a simple list. I don't prioritize it, I just make it. This includes meetings.

Then, first thing I do in the morning is update my list based on what (if anything) changed the night before. I place asterisks beside the THIS HAS TO HAPPEN OR UHOH things. I even prioritize those.

Then, I schedule them into my day, before I start - based on estimating them. I follow through with those items, shutting off everything whilst working on the "must happen" list. I review the list and re-prioritize roughly mid-day, having come up for air at least once.

The problem I found over the years is that nothing is as quick, as limitless, and as fluid as paper. For this reason I use a Stalology B6 notebook.

greenyouse 6 years ago |

We have a weekly on-call position on our team where that person tries to shield everyone else from non-sprint distractions. They would usually be on point for handling requests from other teams, production issues, release problems, helping stuck people, etc. It's generally a nice way to balance the workload across the team and make sure knowledge is spread evenly.

For a team without that, I would either context switch each time a problem comes up (which could be hard if you're pinged a lot) or make a more formal intake process. I've gotten pretty used to context switching so my general flow is to keep a list of the problems I'm working on and break each down into small sub-tasks with check marks for progress. It's sort of like caching your current work and thoughts on the problem but that is still not as good as just working through the issue uninterrupted. I don't think the tool for note taking matters, it could be a journal, org-mode, plain text, outlook, trello, or whatever you're comfortable with.

Some teams which I've worked with have built out intake systems to keep random fire drills under control. The system they have is to keep a triage channel open in slack and a triage board in Jira. If you have a small question or need a bit of help, it's usually fine to ping the on-call for their team in the slack channel. If their on-call is swamped or the issue is bigger, they'll usually request that you file an intake ticket with Jira. This probably seems like overkill (especially if the company is a small startup) but if you're spending a significant amount of time helping people and solving production problems, this should be tracked so people can see the extra work you're putting in. It's important that people don't burn out or become the sole person who know how everything works. Newer management may not understand why you're struggling unless you give them tools to see your actual workload.

gherkinnn 6 years ago |

Finding myself in similar positions, I have made a few observations:

- most requests aren't urgent, people are impatient

- identify common requests and solve them at the root (tooling, documentation, training, delegation, etc)

- split my day in to blocks [0]

- block an hour per day for code reviews

- a list containing little bits and pieces like updating some documentation, helping here, asking something there and do them in-between or when I feel unmotivated, etc

- unapologetically close slack/teams/email/etc when working on something that requires your attention

[0] https://doist.com/blog/time-blocking/

devnullbyte 6 years ago |

I use a kanban board.

[Backlog] [Active] [Done]

All new tasks go into [Backlog]. In the morning I move the backlog cards around based on priority, the higher or more urgent items positioned at the top. The top three then move into [Active]. [Active] has a limit of no more than 3 items. As items are completed they move into [Done] and are replaced by new items from [Backlog], again up to a limit of three. I limit [Active] (they call it a WIP limit) to make sure I don't take on 5-6 tasks and start feeling overwhelmed or despondent for not getting much done as I am flitting between items (spinning plates on sticks).

I use trello, you get a few boards for free.

sedgjh23 6 years ago | |

Hi! I do this as well. Do you do any categorization of your cards? Also, do you do any longer term goal setting and planning?

Jugurtha 6 years ago |

We use GitLab with templates for issues(bug, incident, feature) and Slack.

We also have a Slack workspace for our platform users where they can ask questions, or report bugs or incidents. If users ask a question on how to do something many times, we open an issue for improvement, ux, documentation, etc.

If the users complain something isn't working, we'll open an issue for a bug.

If they report an incident, we'll solve the problem and write up the incident. If it happens more than once, we'll open an issue and solve it.

This pushes development and prioritizes our work. By the third time people complain about something you go alright, it's time to solve this.

If it's something that _prevents_ users work, it shoots up in priority.

muzani 6 years ago |

I actively avoid planning because it kills momentum for everything. It might actually be a good habit to ignore them until you're ready to deal with them. Normally I check messages etc during lunch break and end of the day (around 4 pm). There are also points where it's hard to do work, like an hour before a meeting. You could also leave notifications on if they're time sensitive.

BlameKaneda 6 years ago |

Daily:

- Look at calendar (see if/when I have meetings)

- Make a To Do list and attach it to my monitor (it's quite gratifying to check something off, and that fact's helped me a lot)

- Find out if I have anything due that day, and if so to make that a priority

- Make sure my Git branches are up-to-date

Monday/week start:

- Find out if I have any deadlines, and if so when

popotamonga 6 years ago |

I have more requests than the workday can handle, so they pile up and they are all "urgent". I just to the request for who nags me the most, which are probably the ones that are actually urgent.

The rule is if you want something done you must ask at least 3 times.

Or if someone calls me on the phone, then it's probably urgent.

lol666 6 years ago |

i work now as dev and found that if i dont split time and set some apart for reviews i.e. i'll do less of em? so i started to do the small/simple ones before i star working on my func tickets. i was eorking most of my life remotely so thats ok. have youe rituals: your morning coffe, jog or whatever else it is. if youre having coffe or tea or whaetever you do to start of "easily" your day then u can just think about what u have to do and write it down. i highly recommend to keep a log on what you plan to do and done everyday, that will help you get bet through plan and plan better. if ur half like me then you'll put in there too much stuff on beginning because i had tendency to be to optimistic :D as someone said "youre overpromising and uderdelivering to yourself". so dont.

rotterdamdev 6 years ago |

Email. Anything not communicated in an email doesn't get done. You can use the email threads as a todo list.

krageon 6 years ago |

You say your problem is that you don't do planning, so perhaps that is where you should start. As with all other methods to organise yourself (e.g. a todo list on paper), they work but you have to actually use them consistently.

buboard 6 years ago |

Email is the best tool for async work. Yes, it's meant to be uncomfortable and not fun. Fun things are toys, and slack invariably ends up being one.

lwh 6 years ago |

If people new to it are poking you more, conciously close email/slack/ticketing for a while if you are working on something.

ooooak 6 years ago |

I keep a todo list in a text file and it worked really well. been doing it for last 4 years.

ooooak 6 years ago |

I mostly have a list of todos in simple text file.