Task Management – Ubiquitous Capture

What do I use to get things done? My memory is garbage, so I have to use lots of tools to help me keep things straight. I have gotten into a daily routine; this is the process I go through to keep everything straight and to encourage me to get tasks done. It is a modified version of GTD as described in Getting Things Done; it may not be for everyone, but it works for me.

The most important part of my process is ubiquitous capture — if I have a thought, I had better get it written down somewhere so that I can do something about it in the future. Currently, Evernote is my tool of choice for ubiquitous capture. I have the Evernote application installed on my iPhone so I can quickly dump text or photos (or voice, which I do not use) into Evernote when I am not at a computer. Likewise, I can use the Evernote desktop applications for Windows and Mac OS X to dump text notes into whether I am at work or at home. Additionally, I have Evernote extensions plugged into Firefox and Outlook so that I can save snippets of webpages and emails straight into Evernote. Lastly, I have written a very basic extension to Emacs that hooks the wonderful RememberMode into Evernote so that I minimize the amount of time it takes me to stash something away while I am editing code. That is the key to how I use Evernote — record something as quickly as possible and get back to what I was doing. I will deal with it later.

When I add something to Evernote, it goes straight into my default notebook, the Inbox notebook. It will not stay there long; generally just until I can review my notes in the evening. When I process the notes that have been stashed into my Inbox, I decide what to do with each note based on the type of note. I have three basic types of notes:

1. Informational Notes — if a note is purely informational, I move it into my Archive notebook and possibly tag it with some metadata to help me find it again. Since I can search Evernote from anywhere, I can always retrieve things that I have archived.
2. Immediate Actions — if a note is something that I can do immediately, I go ahead and do it. For example, I weigh myself first thing in the morning and record my weight in Evernote because that is more convenient that pulling out the laptop and putting it in the spreadsheet. When I process my Inbox, I take the weight and log it in a spreadsheet for further tracking.
3. Projects/Tasks — if a note is something more involved than an immediate action, I need to record it in my task tracking software either as a project or as an action on a project. For example, two weeks ago I was attempting to calculate some statistics on task data and really struggled with it. So, I stashed a note in Evernote of “Refresh myself on statistics”. Obviously, this is something that will take a little while to do, so it has become a project in my task tracking software.

I process my Inbox every night; an empty Inbox is the goal of this review.

What is my workflow for managing projects and tasks in my task tracking software? That will be the subject for next time.