My transition from memory loss to a super organiser

Posted byHariharan AnantharamanPosted inLife HacksTags:, , , , , , ,

Year of 2023 ended with a good note for me. One of the things that made 2023 special was a consistent feedback from peers and manager that I am highly organized in my work and I bring the things to closure. I am elated with the feedback as till a couple of years back, quality of my work suffered due to lack of planning. Infact, even now i used to forget things. Funnily, today i forgot my lunch bag in the food court and retrieved it from lost and found when i left for the day.

cross posted here

Step 1 : Identifying what is important and what is not

Eisenhower Matrix is a good starting point. 

The challenge comes when everything is asked to you as a critical or urgent item. What is important is to identify them in specific bucket using

  1. Asking proper questions
  2. Using your own thoughts

Below are the key productivity tools I use

  1. Memo
  2. Microsoft One Note
  3. Google Calendar
  4. Confluence

Lifecycle

When any work comes, it could be a outcome of a email with specific action item on me or my team, or a slack discussion which needs further exploration or a specific things that needs to be worked out and mentioned in a meeting, or a random thought occurring me, below is what I do

  1. Make a entry on a note sticker in Memo desktop app. If it is really critical, I make sure to mark it as Bold. I add any reference like Jira ID etc if needed. I also make a note of to whom I should delegate or follow up.
  2. I have multiple Memo’s (similar to sticky notes). I add the activities/or what i need to do in the respective. For e.g i have below notes
    • My task list
    • Things i should discuss when i discuss with my peer or team mate A (e.g John)
    • Things i should discuss when i discuss with my peer or team mate B (e.g Ravi)
    • Trainings to do
    • Blog posts to write on
    • ….
      And the list continues
      I look at the things based on the type and edit/remove them. AT regular intervals, i also delete the unwanted note category
  3. If i have a note to follow up or delegate to someone a task, I ask them to do in slack or call. After that I have a task in Google calendar to follow up with the specific member. If it is a long running task on initiative, i set up a recurring call or task based.
  4. If there is any Jira ticket or a similar ticket in any project management tool, i subscribe/watch to the specific
  5. If some thought needs explanation, I detail them out in a confluence page. I tag and comment the relevant people to add thoughts on the same or ask for their review.
  6. While slacking or emailing any people beyond the office hours, I also make sure to delay the delivery (unless I am sure that the recipients are working at the time and my communication is expected) so that it reaches them at a time which ensure their attention.

Effective use of OneNote

I use OneNote effectively to capture the knowledge or notes which are worth saving for a lot of time. E.g Decisions taken, key workshop notes, training notes etc. Generally on all these things, there is also a need to save any multimedia content (Images, video link) and also elaborate with my thoughts.

The hierarchical nature of OneNote helps me to maintain and organise the contents in a logical manned.

I have following NoteBooks in One Note

  1. Personal (used to takes notes on personal activities, trainings etc)
  2. Employer (Used to store organization related training notes,decisions etc)
  3. Project/Customer specific notes

Each note book has various section based on the category and each section has various pages. Below is the snapshot from my personal note book

Why I do not use a personal trello board

I like trello boards, but I do not use them for my work tracking as it is a over engineered solution for my current needs. Below are the things

  1. I like to track and make a note of even small things. This would mean lot of of records.
  2. Benefit of trello board comes when you create multiple swimlanes. Given i have various types of tasks and each type has different stages, the board might look very cluttered.
  3. Trello or any equivalent gives a maximum value when lot of people collaborate and contribute.
  4. I can use the same toolset for my personal tasks too. For e.g I have a recurring task for every night to soak Chia seeds, Sabja seeds, start fermentation milk to curd, call a specific person with agenda etc

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