Task Tracking #

The Problem #

I find it quite mentally draining to hold multiple to-do items in my head while at the same time doing other things. Not only is it tiring, but I frequently fail at it; some of the tasks will just evaporate from my memory, only to be recalled a day later (or when there is a serious problem stemming from the task not being done). This isn’t helped by “trying harder”. Doing so only makes me “panic-remember” a task every 5 minutes or so, pulling me completely out of whatever else I was doing.

Trying to remember tasks I’ve found also has a large negative impact on my sleep quality. The cycle of “panic-remembering” leads to me sleeping lightly and waking up whenever the remembering happens.

Mobile Reminders #

An amazing solution to my above problem has been using reminders on my smartphone to keep tasks out of my head, but still make sure they are done. I personally use Google Tasks, but I’m sure other reminder apps would work just as well. My system works like this:

Think of something that needs to be done, or be asked to do something by another person.
Add a task on my phone with a description of the work.
Set a time on the task when I think I’ll be free to tackle it.
Get notified of the task at the time I set.
Do the task, or postpone it; or do some work towards the task and postpone it for later follow up.

This system works very well compared to e.g. a to-do list, because it explicitly considers what time I’ll be in the right mindset and have the right context to do each item. I don’t need to periodically scan my list and re-remember every task when figuring out what to do next.

This system also makes it easy to set recurring tasks, or tasks in the far future (months to years away). I’ve never been able to consistently remember to do these kinds of tasks before using this system.

Building Habits #

Setting recurring reminders at specific times is also an extremely effective way of building atomic habits. I find that doing this proactively is much better than trying to track adherence to a habit reactively (e.g. tracking workouts).

Categories: Lifestyle Optimizations

Backlinks: Sleep, What And Why,