Getting things done#
Another stellar element of the tech startups class I’ve been mentioning was reading the book Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen. This tells you how to organize your life, both personal and professional, and how to build tools for productivity that will last [1].
Throughout the class and our reading of that book, I was gratified to learn that a lot of my systems for productivity are exactly what he suggests. I’m not saying this to be full of myself; if you read it, you will hopefully find some of your organizational tools formally defined there too.
My guide to productivity, at a high level, is:
Know (and learn) yourself
Trust your systems
Minimize distractions
Continuation
That’s it! The rest are details that you’ll learn.
Know (and learn) yourself#
You know what works for you, or you have at least part of an idea. You know when you should go to sleep and get up. You know when you need to eat and how grumpy you’ll be if you don’t. You know what systems you might use, and you probably know deep down whether they’re effective or not.
Some people have an innate clock. I usually have just some sort of instinctive idea of what time it is and how long a task is going to take me or took me. If that’s not you (or even if that is you), try Pooja’s method. Pooja showed us one of her calendars from when she was starting Piazza; it was chaos. She had flights, meetings, and probably like 3 things going on at any and every given hour of the day. One of her most important recommendations was to mark things on your calendar, and then if they take longer, extend the time you took on your calendar event. Then, look back on how much time something took you to inform how much time you’re going to spend on your next task.
This is what I mean by learning yourself. If you can increase your self-awareness of your productivity, you can figure out what’s going well and what you need to change. This will help you a lot!
Systems#
Systems are those structures and tools which you trust to organize stuff. Trust is crucial here: if you don’t trust that, for instance, your notes app is going to save, how do you expect to ever be productive? Or, if you don’t trust that your calendar is an accurate reflection of your time, why use it at all? Stuff is, well, stuff. Maybe it’s an assignment you need to do. Maybe it’s an appointment. Maybe it’s a meetup with a friend. Whatever it is, you’ll need a place to put and remember it so that you do it.
Before I continue, here are some decent apps and methods which you can use:
Your phone or computer’s notes app (this is what I use: it’s simple and free!)
Your phone or computer’s reminders app
Your phone or computer’s calendar app, or Google calendars [2]
The increasingly popular Obsidian
Good old pen and paper (surprisingly effective and not outdated as we may think!)
Build up structures that help you. I like to split up my short term TODOs, long term projects, and those projects which “would be nice” but need to stay out of sight and out of mind for me to get things done.
My short term TODOs are in my notes. I organize them vaguely by priority, e.g. the highest priority things go to the bottom so I can delete them easily.
My long term projects are sometimes in my notes, and mostly float towards the top so I see them first while my short term TODOs are near the bottom.
My “would be nice” things are in a “Project Ideas” document in the cloud. These are things that I want to get around to eventually, e.g. over a weekend or break. I’ll open this up during those times, but usually not when I’m at school or working (or I’ll open it to put stuff in for later).
Projects are hard to get done, but that’s what makes them worth it in the first place. You’re investing time and effort over an extended period of time to make something great. Often times, I don’t put my long term projects in my notes and instead in my calendar as an hour block with an alert to take a swing at it. I don’t expect to get it done, but I’m setting myself up to spend a bit of time every day on things.
An old professor and friend used to say: it’s the aggregate of marginal gains [3]. If you can just put in a small amount of time each day to “chip away” at a larger project, it will eventually become much bigger and much less scary to deal with.
One other system beyond a TODO list like I’ve said above is a calendar. Again, do what works for you, but I think to some degree if you’re trying toward higher levels of productivity, you need a way to manage your time.
Finally, as my first point explained: figure out what works for you. Not all of this advice is going to work, but hopefully it sets you on the right path. And if you find your systems aren’t working, change something! Drop a class. Tell your boss something isn’t working. Reorganize your life priorities. Often times we think we have less control over our lives than we actually do.
Distractions#
Distractions are normal in life. They will always be there, however much we try to shove them away.
However, one method I find helpful to manage my distractions is to group them. If I’m already distracted by something (e.g. a friend or family member distracts me from coding), I’ll group some other tasks with it. That might be a great time to get up and stretch and to talk with them and give them my full attention. And then, if I can’t get into the zone again afterwards, I’ll see what other tasks on my notes list look inviting.
Sometimes I’ll even save tasks for these moments, because I know I’ll see these moments again. For instance, if I need to prep some food, go get groceries, and take the trash out, I’ll do all of those (not necessarily in that order, lol) in an hour or two and then get back to work and be able to fully focus.
Don’t try to optimize your life fully free of distractions. I’ve done it. And it sucks. You need friends, family, and people in your life. Just know how to work with distractions, not against them.
Continuation#
The final thing that’s important in organization and productivity is continuation. It’s not enough to do it once. I never quite understand the people who clean out their room once every few years. Keep on top of it! The less distractions you let build up and the less that’s in the back of your mind of what’s around you, the less you have to worry about. It’s the same with your organization and productivity. Don’t let it slip, build up, and then you’re stressed because you have a million other things to do but you also need to clean whatever it is; do a little bit when you can. It adds up.
Planning your days and your tasks is time well spent. Take 1-3 hours every weekend to reorganize your priorities [4], or spend 5 minutes every night before you go to sleep reorganizing. At the end of a day, I find it productive to spend those five minutes and see what I can knock off my TODO list from the day or add things that I’m thinking about. Just make sure you don’t turn your planning into procrastination.
Often times this is unavoidable in life, but it feels like we’re always reacting to things. People will drift in and out of your life at unexpected times, and so will work-related things. In my eyes, the less you can react to things, the more you get done. Once you get things done, rest assured that something is going to come up; and you’ll have the freedom and bandwidth to deal with it.
Buyer beware#
Despite all that I’ve said here, don’t enter the productivity trap. The productivity trap is the idea that you have to be productive 100% of the time; you don’t have to, and in most cases, you literally can’t be [5]. Sure, if you’re pushing toward something great you can make sacrifices, but otherwise, say no (see Saying no).
Similar to this is the self-improvement trap: you’re always buying things and just waiting for that one thing that’s going to change and fix your whole life (no thanks to our modern consumerist culture). In reality, buying things probably won’t make you that much happier or fix your whole life. The self-improvement trap implies that you’re not valuing yourself already and not believing in your ability; believe in yourself and how far you’ve made it, and then make healthy improvements on top of that.