As developers we are dealing with many tasks every week. We need a system to organize ourselves.
Goals
After completing this card you should have:
- A to-do list that you maintain every day. Many of us use
Holly
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, but a
todo.txt on your desktop or any other tool is fine, too.
- A habit of tracking any incoming task. We can never forget a task that a colleague or customer gives us.
- A habit of splitting any kind of task or project into actionable first steps.
- A habit of fully completing tasks to clear your plate for new tasks. We cannot have an ever-growing list of "nearly done" tasks.
- A system to process incoming e-mail. It's not OK to scroll through hundreds of e-mails in your inbox every morning, trying to figure out what to do today.
- A
Google Calendar
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with notifications on your desktop and/or phone.
- A habit of skimming over large bodies of text before intensively reading their most relevant pieces
- Considered reducing distractions by disabling notifications.
Getting things done
Watch the following two video summaries of David Allen's book Getting Things Done:
Note
For work it's often sufficient to have a single TODO list.
Minimizing distractions
Reading efficiently
Practice
Start using the tools you learned, e.g. track the tasks you're given by your mentor in lists and calendar.