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Slight hijack : can someone tell me if Trello is free to use for private use, or do I need to pay a subscription?
Trello with WIP limits and a physical kanban on the fridge door with the small post-its ( thanks Flashy 😉) for family stuff.
The beauty of Trello is in its simplicity. It does 1 thing well - but with integrations, it can used with all sorts of other useful stuff too.
badger - there is a free version
I like Wunderlist and Todoist, but now I need to share it in Microsoft Teams (which I really like) so increasingly I’m using Planner and OneNote.
Planner lets you create Buckets (task lists) and move the tasks around within it, create time schedules and assign tasks to others (if that’s your thing). Browsers and iOS apps both work well, and I think it’s really good for what I need.
The biggest issue with it is anybody can mark tasks as complete, or delete them all together. I think that’s an issue and I think they are working on permissions for a future release. If it’s just for you though, it’s great.
Kind of OT to this but also relevant given the OP's complaint that due to the reactiveness and ever shifting priorities, he was getting in the sh!t for not doing things...
My place of work used to be very much like this. What we realised, is that those decision-makers (managers) who are causing the reactiveness and causing priority switching are basically holding *you* accountable for decisions that *they* are making.
Sometimes I think this was unintended, but I think some certain individuals knew exactly what they were doing.
Anyway, I think as well as being as efficient as possible in managing tasks you've also got to understand and take control of the cultural situation.
The way we have dealt with this is to make it very clear (in writing) to the decision-makers what the implications of them switching priorities is. This is usually that they are taking a risk in some way.
I work in software development, so often the decision-makers would apply pressure to move onto something new without properly completing something. So for an (extreme) example lets say we still had the application of data encryption to credit card data yet to do, when a priority change came in. We would state somethign like:
You do realise, that by changing priorities we have yet to complete data encryption tasks. This is a security risk and if left unresolved then we may be PCI compliance regulations, and we may have our license to operate removed? Are you willing to state that you are approving the tolerance of this risk by leaving the encryption unresolved?
This definitely tipped the balance of power 🙂 If the risk materialises then they knew about it, and it's their fault not yours. They are accountable for their own decisions.
Often though there are quite sensible (less extreme!) risks to take. The point it that the decision makers who change priority have to know they are taking the risk, and approving tolerance of the risk, by diverting you onto other work.
A key point is that you have to get very good at identifying and articulating risks (hopefully as part of some mutually agreed framework) without wasting too much time.
Not sure what line of work you are in but maybe/hopefully you can see parallels and find this useful
Trello is free for personal or professional use but with very limited integrations and <10MB attachments.
Google Keep if you like post it notes!
Like most, I've developed my own coping mechanism to minimise the number of balls dropped. Like you, I've had a couple of roles in recent years which covers a wide range of responsibilities for which I was directly responsible (appraisals and career management for circa 110 personnel, equipment care for a couple £m of equipment, organising adventure training, organising exercises, managing deployments etc) The only way I managed was as follows:
Emails: Every email got triaged and flagged using a colour coding system ie. each of the above categories had a different colour; the most important also got flagged as red. Tick off/strip out the dross and then sort the remainder by category, keeping on top of the most important ones. Completed emails got archived for approx 6 months in case someone comes back to me about something I've long forgotten.
Random tasks: I use a Moleskine diary with a week to view on the left hand page and notes on the right. The notes page is split into relevant sections with items to do in each along with the deadline for each. If the task doesn't had a deadline I give it a nominal one, after which if the task is not complete, it gets deleted. At the end of each week, the list gets carried forward after I have reviewed my progress and binned the things that no longer matter.
Personal / family: my wife and I use apple's calendar on our phones to sync all personal events across devices. We also use Wunderlist to manage tasks. She can input tasks, as can I and then we can tick them off when done. The most useful thing I find is that tasks (ie. renew insurance, dog worming tablets etc) can bet set to re-occur automatically so you almost don't have to remember them. Finally, I import my work diary from outlook into apple calendar on a weekly basis so that both my wife and I can see what my work commitments are, when I'll be home late/early etc etc.
Written down, it all seems very convoluted and complex but it's actually really simple and effective!
I use the post it notes on MS office, just one and have a never ending shit list- a list of things to do and i delete each thing as i go.
The discipline is adding stuff and the second the fire fighting stops open up the shit list and sort something.
will post sensible answer on return from holiday. not.
trello for our usage just made more work to do.
I have Trello for personal stuff, but find it a bit clunky, but maybe that's just me?
I also have a clear inbox policy - delete anything I don't need, flag anything that needs an action, deal with it, import to our IT system if necessary, then delete. A full inbox is the worst thing for productivity, feeling swamped. Get stuff cleared and out of the way.
I have Trello for personal stuff, but find it a bit clunky, but maybe that’s just me?
I tried it for a while a few years back. The auto-ageing thing pissed me off, so I stopped using it.
You can turn off card ageing.
Or do what we do, and install the pirate ageing plugin so it makes your cards go like old pirate scrolls. Yarrr!
Another trelloist here, just simple lists of jobs to do (in various contexts) and easy enough to add a job from the widget rather than having to open the app. Occasionally pull up the web page for a major re-sorting. Doesn't work well offline (IME) which may annoy some.
Also have a simple list app on the phone but that's mostly for food shopping though it can do jobs too. Not as easy for moving things between lists but better offline.
As for clearing email inbox, I just have a onebox approach instead. I delete trash, flag stuff that needs dealing with and the rest just sits there. Search does the rest when I want to look up something.
As as a result, email management takes literally zero time for me. I have all my email back to about 2012 when I last changed account (and took up this practice).
(Emails with massive attachments get purged occasionally, eg people sending multiple iterations of ppt files)
I use a day view A4 diary, it goes everywhere with me and has enough room to structure my day and add things as and when they come in.
I use my outlook calendar, added benefit is if I have blocked off some time to complete a task, it shows as busy so people don't tend to book meetings and calls.
You could always take my bosses approach and just ignore something until it becomes urgent and somebody shouts, then get defensive and say we cant do things with the budget and staffing before quietly shafting one of us with the task to get something done in about 1/5th of the time needed.
Google Keep is simple, flexible, syncs across all devices and you can share lists. I find it useful for packing lists, shopping, etc, because it's handy to be able to add or tick stuff off on the phone as I wander around.
Google Inbox reminders are also useful. You can easily schedule and snooze them.
Oh Crap!
What should I be doing now ???
👎🤷♀️💃🌈
I'm in a similar position, I have to react to problems throughout the day but also proactively plan ahead, the sort of planning that is quite easy with no interruptions but if you keep getting calls with problems the whole day goes to shit.
I print out a weekly planner now, the teams tasks are listed at the top with side for updates, at the bottom the is space to write a 'to do' list and reminders. Anything not attended to gets transferred to the following day and at the end of the week, it gets stashed in a shelf so I can refer back to stuff.
Plus I have lots of post it notes, try to deal with immediate issues whilst on the phone, and move a lot of emails into my outlook calender with a reminder set.
Several of my colleagues use One Note but I've never really looked into it.
I've seen that we have MS Teams as part of out Office 365 Offering, it also includes MS Planner which is a Trello copy/inspired by version.
I'm starting to set it up as a small scale start for my team at the moment, could cover a few things
I like Priority Matrix
When the pressure is on (i.e. now, I have just started a new job. Until I get into the swing of how the new job operates I need the discipline.
I gives an always visible 4 quadrant matrix, can have more than one matrix (e.g. 'work', 'personal' etc)
Syncs across all devices and platforms.
I like.
Several of my colleagues use One Note but I’ve never really looked into it.
I'm firmly of the opinion that OneNote is one of the greatest products MS has ever produced. I have my life in it, it's essentially an online backup of my brain.
some common themes in above - take time to up date to do (whatever you use) and diary stuff to ensure essentials aren't missed - hard but i found working to cycles useful weekly/monthly/quarterly for essential tasks - pencil out the diary in advance - yep half the day / half the week will disappear with urgent appearing stuff and allow for that but will hope focus on the stuff that counts and as to that remember the old saying - "do whats important, not what is urgent" - if only achieve that 50% of the time that's better being reactive to crap stuff 100% of the time - depends a bit on the culture you are in and size/style of organisation but can you approach a senior person who seems to get stuff done/be really on top of their role and ask them for some regular mentoring?