Ask HN: How do you keep track of all your work?

2 points by devjungle 5 years ago | 1 comment

I've recently transitioned to an Engineering Leadership role within a large enterprise, and one thing I struggle with is keeping track of all my work and commitments, big and small. I try and keep notes in a notepad, but sometimes after I'm on my 4th or 5th page of notes for the day, I quickly forget to transcribe and organise those notes at the end of the day. And not to mention, that's not really that fun. I've tried using Joplin for taking notes on the computer, I've tried markdown files in Vim, but I struggle to make that habitual as it's kind of out-of-site-out-of-mind, and I usually end up reverting to reactionary ways of working and prioritising whatever is at the top of my email inbox.

Any advice on methodologies, or tools?

I've read and followed GTD before, but find it a little too granular and feel like I don't really have the right tools to pull it off (restricted internet access at work so many cloud solutions like evernote are off the table for myself). I also struggle with keeping notes during meetings, sometimes my notes are very sparse and not actually capturing the detail and thoughts that need to be captured. Having 4-8 hours of meetings every day also makes it difficult to find time to gather thoughts between those meetings, but I try to flesh out my notes post meeting if I can and that helps a little.

asyncscrum 5 years ago |

Microsoft todo to app. Strictly such that flagged emails automatically show up in the app. I feel like Mac users have more interesting task management options.

Toggl. Time tracker tool. I don't need to track my time for what I do, but knowing what you've been spending time on recently is a good indicator of what's important.

I've used a few zoom tools that transcribed meetings. Even some that identify key moments and add time stamped notes such that you can surface to-dos in context.