How to not forget things and do good work

This is how I help myself to not forget things and do good work.

It's a table:

I did not invent the idea behind the columns of this table, lots of other people did.

I just put them together as a daily resting place for all the stuff in my head.

The 4 columns are essentially where my brain is categorising 'the things to do'.

My working memory is unreliable so the table manages it for me.

This method is made up of 80% mindset and 20% using a tool to stay organised.

For the 20% part, you don't need the table, but it can help to visualise and write things down. I do this in a text editor with 4 columns. You could do this in trello, spreadsheets, on a piece of paper, wherever you will actually look.

1 problem to solve today

The absolute one thing that you need to get done today. If you don't get anything else done, that's OK, at least you got this one very important thing done.

There can only be one so choose wisely.

Sometimes, the 1 problem you need to solve today is not work related.

For example, if you have broken your foot and it hurts a lot, your 1 problem to solve today is to go to the hospital and sort that out. Everything else is going to have to wait. I challenge you to find a work-related task or project that is more important than your broken foot. If you think you found something more important, I think you're wrong. Try again.

If your health is good, and you are at work, there is one urgent or more important task/client/problem to solve today. Write it down.

If you are forward-thinking, you can add a placeholder for your 1 problem to solve tomorrow - but be flexible.

parking lot

The parking lot is used to help you strengthen your distractability delay (the ability to wait before responding to a distraction).

We are pretty bad at this on account of being used to phone notifications. But this is a muscle you can exercise so you are not so reactive.

Not everything is urgent.

Add things to the parking lot as they come in so that you don't forget them. But understand that you are putting them there because you are not going to work on them right now - they are a distraction from your 1 problem to solve today.

Keep your whole table visible throughout the day, and especially this column.

If something changes and one of the parking lot items becomes urgent, you can shift focus to it.

done

Cut + paste or drag completed items here when they are done.

This gives you that sweet, sweet serotonin boost and feels better than just removing items from the other columns. It also means you can look back at all the stuff you completed over time.

breadcrumbs

Leave breadcrumbs for yourself when you need to stop working on a task but you're still in the middle of it.

For example if you get stuck into a project but realise you are 2 minutes late to a meeting, you'll need to leave yourself some breadcrumbs.

I'm in favour of being a few more minutes late so I can coherently leave breadcrumbs before moving on to the next thing.

In your breadcrumbs you can add some quick notes about what you just did, and what you would have done if you could keep going.

This one needs to stay visible too, so when you're meeting is done you remember what you were in the middle of and can get back there more easily.