Over 14 years of todos recorded in text
My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file
By Jeff Huang, updated on 2022-03-21
The biggest transition for me when I started college was learning to get organized. There was a point when I couldn't just remember everything in my head. And having to constantly keep track of things was distracting me from whatever task I was doing at the moment.
So I tried various forms of todo lists, task trackers, and productivity apps. They were all discouraging because the things to do kept getting longer, and there were too many interrelated things like past meeting notes, calendar appointments, idea lists, and lab notebooks, which were all on different systems.
I gave up and started just tracking in a single text file and have been using it as my main productivity system for 14 years now. It is so essential to my work now, and has surprisingly scaled with a growing set of responsibilities, that I wanted to share this system. It's been my secret weapon.
Prerequisite: A calendar. The one outside tool I use is an online calendar, and I put everything on this calendar, even things that aren't actually for a fixed time like "make a coffee table at the workshop" or "figure out how to recruit new PhD students" — I'll schedule them on a date when I want to think about it. That way all my future plans and schedule are together, and not a bunch of lists I have to keep track of.
Making the Daily List: Every night before I go to bed, I take all the items on my calendar for the next day and append it to the end of the text file as a daily todo list, so I know exactly what I'm doing when I wake up. This list contains scheduled tasks (2pm meeting with Madonna, 4pm office hours), errands (sign a form, return a book), and work items (review a paper, prepare a presentation). It also lets me think about whether I've got the right amount of work for a day.
Anything I don't want to do tomorrow, I'll shuffle back into my calendar on later dates. If the task is too big, I'll break it down into a piece for tomorrow, and the rest for another date. After years of doing this, I've gotten pretty good at estimating what I can finish in a day. Here's an example with names replaced so you can see what it looks like when I move a day's schedule from my calendar.
2021-11-31 11am meet with Head TAs - where are things at with inviting portfolio reviewers? 11:30am meet with student Enya (interested in research) review and release A/B Testing assignment grading 12pm HCI group meeting - vote for lab snacks send reminders for CHI external reviewers read Sketchy draft Zelda pick up eye tracker - have her sign for it update biosketch for Co-PI 3:15pm join call with Umbrella Corp and industry partnership staff 3:45pm advising meet with Oprah 4pm Rihanna talk (368 CIT) 5pm 1:1 with Beyonce #phdadvisee 6pm faculty interview dinner with Madonna
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