How do you manage workload (what do you use?)

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RUKI

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#1665012 7-Nov-2016 14:06

Geektastic:

I've tried many but none really worked for me better than a notebook and a pen to be honest.

If you add 3 highlighters to your list of tools (red, yellow and green) to mark importance/priority and if I were in a position of building a new team - you are hired!

The best part of that work management set of tools is having a black marker handy to cross-out already completed tasks :-)

P.S. You just need one-page to carry around and get blank list from the notebook when all tasks marked in "red" (urgent and important) had gone from the first list :-)

Dulouz

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#1665074 7-Nov-2016 15:14

I use https://www.wunderlist.com/

Amanon

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#1665144 7-Nov-2016 16:09

RUKI:

Geektastic:

I've tried many but none really worked for me better than a notebook and a pen to be honest.

If you add 3 highlighters to your list of tools (red, yellow and green) to mark importance/priority and if I were in a position of building a new team - you are hired!

The best part of that work management set of tools is having a black marker handy to cross-out already completed tasks :-)

P.S. You just need one-page to carry around and get blank list from the notebook when all tasks marked in "red" (urgent and important) had gone from the first list :-)

I swear that 'modern life' complicates an awful lot of things whilst pretending to improve them...!

gehenna

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#1665151 7-Nov-2016 16:20

Pen and paper would probably suit me if I had legible handwriting and actually enjoyed writing. I don't and I don't. And I can knock out a typed sentence in half the time it takes to write it with a pen. Not to mention the fact I can change things on the fly. So my iPad Pro with Smart Keyboard and Pencil goes to every meeting with me. The notes I take sync to all my devices so when I'm back at my desk on my laptop everything is right there ready to go. I can take a photo of the whiteboard with Office Lens and insert that inline into a note for context later. It's a really simple workflow but it's worlds ahead of what I could do with a pen and paper...especially given I'd be spending twice the time it takes to write something just working out later what it actually is that I wrote!

I do think you can go overboard with this stuff. I've probably spent more than $500 on productivity apps over the years, easily. But I always gravitate back to the simple ones. Before Apple Notes became everything I need I was using Wunderlist. It's free and it's awesome. I'm sure some people love the complexity of their workflow, with tags and categorisations and text expansions etc etc. But for me a note is usually a meaningful title with a date, who was there, what it was about, and a few bullet points maybe with a photo for context. I treat my email similarly - I don't go all out with folders and categories - I just have an Inbox for new email, and a folder called Archive where I put everything once it's been read/actioned. I rely on Outlook's search and conversation functionality to find anything I need later. It's easy and it works, and at the end of every day I'm at inbox zero even if I've had 200+ emails during the day.

RUKI

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#1665263 7-Nov-2016 18:49

Geektastic:

I swear that 'modern life' complicates an awful lot of things whilst pretending to improve them...!

I am with you on that.

We set up first corporate network in town based on 286 at the times of Norton Commander. I have upgraded Cargo Port (128 PC stations) from 64 to 128kbps and they were happy by then! Life was fun. Operations of corporate organisations in 80-s & 90-s I've been with had more discipline and were running smoothly. Finding any document was easy.

I've recently run a script on one (undisclosed) corporate network drive - a pile of unorganised c$#p where no one can find a thing. And they have already run out of the disk space! They are looking to burn $$$ to find "a solution". And they have "management" in their job descriptions.

During the last 22 years I've seen such a pile of useless apps introduced to the corporate world. Observing Management asking for "one big magic button" which will solve all their problems. Seeing Project Managers (big High-Tech companies in NZ) unable to use MS Excel on a basic level (e.g. being unaware of the horizontal scroll bar), or clicking mouse 20 times where one could just use macro or short-cuts. Or unaware that documents need to be formatted before sent to print.

Technology is developing at a speed many cannot cope with or never were able to comprehend.

That is how they fish: the fish which does not fit between two marks on the boat is thrown back to sea. You ask why two marks? That's right - it is the size of their frying pan. If the "fish" does not fit the "pan" it is discarded.

Another story:

Under the tree, manager is jumping up and down, trying to pick up the apple.

Business Analyst goes by, see the branches on the ground and tells the man:

- "Pick up any - use them as a tool to reach for the apple."

- "Can't you see, I am busy jumping, I don't even have time to think about it!"

You can use any tool which suits your needs if you know how to put it to the good use. It is sad that many around you will continue jumping up and down :-(

Too many have the "pan" too small ...

jmh

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#1665572 8-Nov-2016 10:13

I spent some time trying all the time management tools/apps. I finally decided that the task manager in my email client (Thunderbird) does the job without too much extra effort. It's not synced to anything but I only really need it when I'm working on my computer anyway. Don't like the monthly fee model of some of the apps. I might have paid a one-off fee, but nothing justifies a monthly fee in my case.

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