Ask HN: Less Bureaucratic productivity software. Activation Energy, it's a thing
2 comments
Hi Alex,
Like you, I've tried using various TODO list applications but got stuck in the same predicament: creating the list, laying out steps, ticking them off when done, setting deadlines is just impossible to integrate into my workflow. Maintaining lists seems often seems irrational and always feels forced to me.
I have taken a different approach: instead of planning my life, I like tracking it. I like writing documentation for my work to be able to come back to it or transfer it to others in my team, I like keeping logs and recording thoughts. I've integrated some high level overviews of what to do into logging what I have already done, or, to put it more simply: I've stopped maintaining a list of TODOs and started maintaining a list of "things to write about as already done".
I guess I am just fooling myself, but it really helps me to realise that by doing this it will help me in the future wheh I have to re-do certain procedures, tell stories to friends, remember my life, and from a professional perspective: hand over parts of tasks that are not interesting to me to somebody else. Keeping a log makes it that much easier.
Like you, I've tried using various TODO list applications but got stuck in the same predicament: creating the list, laying out steps, ticking them off when done, setting deadlines is just impossible to integrate into my workflow. Maintaining lists seems often seems irrational and always feels forced to me.
I have taken a different approach: instead of planning my life, I like tracking it. I like writing documentation for my work to be able to come back to it or transfer it to others in my team, I like keeping logs and recording thoughts. I've integrated some high level overviews of what to do into logging what I have already done, or, to put it more simply: I've stopped maintaining a list of TODOs and started maintaining a list of "things to write about as already done".
I guess I am just fooling myself, but it really helps me to realise that by doing this it will help me in the future wheh I have to re-do certain procedures, tell stories to friends, remember my life, and from a professional perspective: hand over parts of tasks that are not interesting to me to somebody else. Keeping a log makes it that much easier.
I don't have an answer, but I agree with the idea. Tools are not the key to productivity.
Some people must have succeeded though, and some of those people must have been as lazy and dedicated to instant gratification as the rest of us. I wonder how they did it.
For example, I would love to use a nested to-do list, with the ability to keep notes on things that I have finished. Unfortunately, if accessing it at any time takes more than a single keystroke, and would take me out of what I am doing, it seems like I probably would not use it. At any time when I should update it, I will tend to choose to store the information in short term memory out of expediency. The activation energy is just too high.
Has anybody found a technique for managing themselves that takes very little energy to integrate? Ideally, so little, that it seems like using it is easier than not using it.
Or did everybody just have to buck up and start making the responsible choice to keep themselves organized?
-Alex