You should be try to be as organized and productive as possible. Most people aren't because they don't need to be. Not being organized isnt that much of a hindrance until you hit the point where you're flooded with work, not knowing what to do next. Most people naurally adopt a 'reactionary' workflow where your actions are a reaction to some event (Eg: Teacher says "Where's my report" and you swing into action making one). A report may be an extreme example but throughout the day an average worker is bombed with multiple emails, pings, reminders, meetings, etc. that just pop out of nowhere and take away your precious little attention. The sad part is that these
small activities little by little eat away your time and reduce your focus, leaving you with less time to work and also decreasing the quality of your work.
So, it is essential to take the object of your attention seriously so that you can be focused and productive. Which brings me to my main issue, to-do lists! You can scarcely keep all the things you need to know and remember in your cranium. That's why you need to use some tool to store the your important information for you. We've come up with many tools with a multitude of names to do this job: diaries, task-managers, to-do lists, PIM systems, stickies, personal wikis, etc. In my boredom fuelled search for productivity p0rn, i have tried and tested a ton and have failed miserably in falling in love with any of them. Some are too clunky, some too simple, some not cross platform, some not digital,etc. However i reached a point where i had to choose one because the situation demanded it. But before i picked one, i wanted to think about what the ideal *Unburdener* (Yup, thats my word for it) should be like. Well it should be like your MOM (if you had a nice mom i.e.); i chose the mataphor of a mom because moms not only *help* you do stuff but they also *make* you do stuff. They dont just assist, they direct. Probably a pretty tough standard to judge stupid software/tools by but seemingly a good one.
So i'm going to be using a mom to come with an ideal unburdener.
Helpful features of mom
1. Asks you what happened today and plans things accordingly for you
2. Reminds you to do stuff
3. Doesnt allow you to slack off (too much)
4. Understands if you're tired/too hungry and have to delay stuff
5. Rewards you when you've done some great stuff
6. Always knows what you'll be doing ("No movie next friday, we have to go to Uncle Johns!")
7. Facilitates productive work by killing distractions.
8. Always ready with the right stuff so that you can start working immediately. ("Here's your physics book under the laptop!")
9. Knows what your friends are upto.
10. Tells dad if you've slacked off too much and need a beating.
That's all i can come up with for now. Now it's time to convert these features of mom into things we'd want in an ideal Unburdener.
1. Easy creation of tasks and automatic decision of best time to work on them.
2. Reminders
3. Nagging annoying reminders and automatic updates about tasks you may be ignoring/slacking off on.
4. Easy way to delay stuff and reallocate time for it when something stops you from working.
5. Encourages you watch a movie or gives you a fun article to read when you finish a hi-pri task
6. Easy retrieval and visualization of tasks and when they occur.
7. Turn off everything else/Focus mode.
8. Automatic/facilatated association of all materials related to a task with the task itself.
9. Ability to share tasks and collaborate on them.
10. A reaper which looks at stuff you've been sitting on for too long and threatens to email your mom about it!
Now lets use the above features (which was actually a list of wants) to come up with a list of things that you'd want in your Unburdener (rememeber unburdener the fancy name we came up with), we'll combine that with other features to come up a master list of features that an ideal Unburdener must have in order to give you complete peace of mind. For now we're it the almost there list.
Almost there list:
1. Easy task creation
2. Easy allocation of time for working on task (probably aided with suggestions)
3. Nice Reminders everywhere (NO double reminders on phone AND PC, but reminders available on everthing nonetheless)
4. Intelligent reminders that not just remind but also enquire what you're doing about the task (If its a meeting, it asks if you're really attending it. If it's a task it'll ask if you're really working on it and if not, it will help you nicely reschedule working on that task)
5. Has priority (and/or difficulty) levels for each task and gives you fun stuff to do when you finish a high priority/difficulty task (or when you complete a project)
6. Typical calendar with day,week, month views and filtering of tasks
7. Ability to seach and filter tasks easily.
8. Ability to move tasks around easily on calendar/wherever.
9. Ability to mark a couple of things as relevant and make everything else disappear/mute it.
10. Ability to attach/tag relevant files/objects to a task
11. Easy assignment and tracking of tasks.
12. Automatic/Suggested closure to tasks not worked on.
Will chalk out a master list and evaluation framework in the next part.
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