Supercharge your productivity with in-task notes

Posted by on Nov 3, 2011 in Featured | 4 comments

Supercharge your productivity with in-task notes

There’s a reason for why we look to increase our productivity through task and time management: we’re stressed. Handing such matters over to trusted systems frees up staggering amounts of brain capacity – yet there’s more to gain through in-task notes.

 

Leave no information behind

 

If you’ve been managing your tasks through an external system for some time, you already know the warm, fuzzy feeling which stems from relieving your poor, maltreated brain from having to act as a storage location when it’s really a production facility. As much of a relief this is, few take the opportunity to offload collateral information – the kind that is neither a task, nor something you want to store for eternity, but rather information which is required for a limited duration of time.

 

Typically, however, those who are fairly new to task management overlook collateral information because there is little emphasis on it in methodologies and software. Tasks go in a task manager such as Remember the Milk, Wunderlist or MyLifeOrganized. Reference materials go in a notes manager such as Evernote, SpringPad or Onenote. Collateral information doesn’t quite fit either because its link to the specific task is vital, and it can be a bit of a hassle to create simple links between the two camps.Then, there’s the historical aspect, which can be particularly important in communications-heavy professions. Keeping track of what has been said and done in a variety of situations and mediums frees up even more memory, all for the better.

 

Enter the notes field

 

Many consider the notes field found in most task managers to be superfluous. It’s typically underpowered, hard to reach and doesn’t offer much in terms of taking proper notes. Which, in all honesty, is true; a dedicated notes application is vastly preferable for keeping track of proper notes. For collateral and historical information, however, it’s perfect – as long as it’s omnipresent.

 

For instance, MyLifeOrganized, which is my preferred task manager, executes admirably on this, always keeping the notes field within easy reach.So, what exactly goes in there?Bits and bobs, with a smidge of structure. Allow me to exemplify by showing you my own way of taking notes:

 

OT [Date] [Name]:

 

- Discussed meeting proposal, promised support

- Recommended lobbying with Joe, 450-223-4826

- Reminded of presentation requirements, fewer slides on spending and more on concrete outcomes

 

The outline is simple: the OT stands for an outgoing telephone call (IE would mean incoming e-mail), made on a certain date, to a certain person with short, keyword-style notes. If for any reason I need to recall something from the exchange, when it was made or in which context, I know where to find it – or simply use the search function.

 

One thing to keep in mind: I make such notes within subtasks to make sure I see them when I need them, but that requires making a habit out of copying them over to subsequent tasks so I have the information at the ready. I could of course allow them to remain, but I don’t keep completed tasks in my lists for two reasons: if left visible, such tasks clutter the working space, while if hidden, they at the very least complicate search when enough have accumulated.

 

Lastly, I’ve seen many people attempt to handle such information through keeping a daily journal. This, alas, is a poor substitute, as it fails to offer the immediacy which make in-task notes so efficient – leaving your brain to rear its ugly prefrontal cortex and whisper: “I can do this infinitely faster. Just trust me.”

 

Which, of course, you shouldn’t.

 

How do you prefer to handle collateral information? You can leave a comment below.

  • http://www.ergoorgo.com/ ErgoOrgo

    Thanks for the insightful post. I’d never defined information as collateral before: I can see its use in encouraging far greater use of context for tasks.

    My system? Try and keep it in my head or partly get round it by specific sub-tasks. I agree most task apps aren’t great for collateral information. My preference is a note taking app which can embed tasks within the flow of text (imagine using it in a meeting where actions are agreed). This would allow you to see the tasks alone or in full context. I’ve not found an app that does this but you could get around it with some plain text notation (eg qq [due date] for a task). One app that takes the context point seriously is TaskPaper for OSX and iOS. I’ve not used but it looks good and many seem to love it.

    • http://www.simplicitypost.com Jørgen Sundgot

      You know, that’s something I would like, too – an application that fully integrates notes and tasks in a seamless way.

      In fact, I’d love for something like this to spring out of OneNote: a full-blown task manager which operates in the way you describe, letting you jump back and forth between tasks and the context from which they originated, all the while letting you annotate and link effortlessly to web pages, e-mails, mind maps, files and soforth.

      I have come across an application like this at one point that impressed me with its concept, but alas cannot remember the name. I do remember I decided against using it even though it got the integration part right; its individual parts (such as task management) simply weren’t advanced enough to meet my demands.

      Digression: SpringPad seems to be headed in the general direction of what we would like, but unfortunately seems to view matters in a slightly different way. Will be exciting to watch how they progress from here.

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  • http://twitter.com/j3black James Black

    For scheduled meetings, I have used the note feature to jot ideas for the agenda and questions I need to ask. I like your idea of doing something similar in tasks. I’ve recently started using Todoist, which allows notetaking in tasks. 

    Quite often I find I have questions or ideas that don’t yet have a concrete task or scheduled meeting, and I’m not sure where to record them. I’ve used a journal, resulting in the problem you point out. The notes-with-embedded-tasks app would be a good solution, I suppose.

    • http://www.simplicitypost.com Jørgen Sundgot

      Regardless of ones approach, I believe the most important thing is to get information out of ones and head, and attach it to ones favoured point of navigating through information.

      If notes is your starting point, place tasks in those. If tasks are your starting place, place notes in those. Much as I prefer the latter, people have different workstyles – and I see the former working well for many, provided that at least rudimentary task management functionality be present.