Lists for Organizing Work

  Here I will explain my way of keeping track of all the things I have to
  do in my life.

Principles

  I want to have a system which
    * is keeping data free and transferable (no locking in);
    * works on electronics or paper;
    * is simple but flexible.

  Quite obviously, it is text based, as pure text is the only format not
  requiring a special tool on computers. As I am a text nerd, and (except
  for some mind-mapping) not of a visual type, this actually fits me
  well.

  Therefore, all is done with pure text files, or writing that does not
  depend on graphical markup or pictograms.

  The basic element is the (task or "ToDo") list.

Task lists

  Each task list has a certain context, inspired by David Allen's
  [1]Getting Things Done system, which however is too rigid for me.

  In my job, I have the contexts _Office, Lab,_ and _Mobile/Mail._ In
  private life, they are _Home, Shopping,_ and _Mobile/Mail/Phone._

  They should be self-explanatory, except for the _Mobile_ categories:
  they contain tasks I can do during commute, whenever I have a moment
  somewhere, and of course also while being at the office or at home (but
  then I normally do things from the other lists).

  I use a certain syntax for the tasks, namely:
F MM free text

  where F is a flag with the following meanings.

  For tasks written in electronic form:
    * - for an open taks, which needs to be done;
    * + for a done task, which will soon be moved to the archive;
    * * for a task which is in a waiting state (like delegated or a
      request sent to somebody, but no answer received yet

  These flags also have the meaning of "bullet list item" in [2]Markdown,
  because I very much like Markdown format for everything text.

  For tasks written in paper form:
    * - and + are the same as above;
    * H for a task in a waiting state (hint: "on Hold") as above;
    * T (actually the lower half of a +) for a task moved to another
      list, i.e not yet done but no longer of interest in the current
      context (hint: "Transferred")

  The MM after the initial flag is mostly only used for electronic form,
  as it is a marker for the list itself (first letter) and a priority
  roughly based on the [3]"four quadrants" philosophy popularized by
  Stephen Covey, which seems to having been initially described by
  Eisenhower and therefore also is called [4]"Eisenhower's Principle".

  For example, an "L1" taks is an important and urgent task to be done in
  the Lab, or an "M3" task is an important but not (so) urgent one while
  on the go.

  Tasks I write down on paper I sometimes mark with = instead of -, if
  they are urgent and important; one can easily strike that through as
  well, when it's done. In addition, tasks on paper rarely get moved from
  one context to another, but rather rewritten, and so the additional
  list marker would be rather useless.

Work Flow

  Currently, I use electronic format for my professional tasks, and
  paper&pen for my private stuff, because in private life, I rarely have
  to sync between different places or tools. However, having had much
  better results with my system in my professional life, I am considering
  switching to electronics also for private stuff. But I love pen&paper,
  and so I'm still resisting...

 At work

  At work, the different contexts are supplemented with two lists called
  "medium term" and "long term". In [5]GTD they would be called
  "Projects" I suppose, and they hold stuff I do not care of for the
  current or next week, but have to be kept in mind. On a weekly review,
  they may be promoted to my "current list" with the different contexts
  separated into different lists. About daily, all the "done tasks" (with
  +) are moved to a "Done" list, which is emptied during the weekly
  review, i.e moved away into the archive.

  As I have my todo-list file tracked with the version control system
  [6]Git, I simply empty the "Done" list after having committed the
  reviewed list, and so the archive is taken care of by the versioning
  control system. Of course I could simply save the todo-list file each
  week under a different name for archiving, but [7]Git allows me to also
  easily synchronize my work among different machines (office PC, laptop,
  server at the informatics services, smartphone and tablet).

  Each day (normally the evening before, but sometimes during morning
  commute), I put three of the most urgent tasks (that I want to finish
  that day) into my calendar while planning the day, and if I have a lot
  of stuff to do at the lab, they get onto a small piece of paper I can
  carry in my pocket, as this is easier than regularly checking the list
  on the smartphone or tablet.

 At home / private

  My private/personal tasks I jot down in a small booklet which
  complements my (paper) calendar. Not much to be said here, except that
  I start a new page, when one is full of tasks, and when all are done,
  the whole page gets striked through.

Calendar

  In addition to the task/todo lists, of course I need a calendar. In
  contrast to the [8]GTD philosophy, not only appointments with other
  people go in there, but also "appointments with myself", i.e time I
  want to block for important (even if not that urgent) tasks, to make
  sure they are taken care of.

  My principal calendar is on paper, but to make sure I can also take new
  appointments if I forget it somewhere, and as a backup, I synchronize
  the paper calendar regularly (in general, weekly) to an electronic one,
  which is also a plain text file, version controlled with [9]Git. This
  electronic calendar I make myself with some simple shell scripts that
  generate skeleton lists of weeks which when filled in look like
### February 2015
#### 2015, KW6: 2015-02-02..2015-02-08
- Mo (02-02)
- Di (02-03) early home, haircut!
- Mi (02-04) 11:30 attend presentation
- Do (02-05) maintenance day
- Fr (02-06)
- Sa (02-07) snow fun!
- So (02-08)

----------------------------------
#### 2015, KW7: 2015-02-09..2015-02-15
- Mo (02-09) 10:30 tech meeting

  These lists are (roughly) Markdown formatted as well and indicate the
  week number, because that's often helpful for professional planning.

  I am thinking about writing a script that would parse the calendar file
  and send me an email or other message, if something is planned the next
  day. However, so far I had good experiences with daily review of the
  calendar together with setting of a simple alarm clock if there is
  something important (appointment etc) in the next 24 hours.

  Of course, this is only a snapshot of my current system. As everything
  alive and heavily used, constantly there are small modifications
  applied.

  As a conclusion, the combination of [10]Markdown, [11]Git, some
  elements of [12]GTD, and synchronized paper and electronic calendars,
  seems to be quite good for keeping me efficient and productive!
    __________________________________________________________________

References

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
  2. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
  3. http://www.asianefficiency.com/productivity/coveys-time-management-quadrant/
  4. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_91.htm
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
  6. http://git-scm.com/
  7. http://git-scm.com/
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
  9. http://git-scm.com/
 10. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
 11. http://git-scm.com/
 12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

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