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Career 🔗

Goals

Learn weekly.

Work towards career growth.

Manage my time daily.

Time Management 🔗

I write down all tasks so I can free up my working memory to focus on the current task. I trust that I will review other tasks periodically. Inspired by the book Getting Things Done.

Tasks 🔗

I use Google Keep for notes. It is convenient to edit on laptop and phone.

I have multiple lists: Inbox, Next, Weekly, Monthly, individual projects.

Inbox lists unprioritized tasks. For example, if I have an idea outside of working hours or during a meeting, I add it to the Inbox.

Next lists tasks ordered by priority. They can include extra information such as deadline or what is blocking the tasks and by which date I should recheck.

Daily / Weekly / Monthly list tasks I do every day / week / month.

Individual projects have their own Inbox / Next lists. For some projects I use Google Docs for such lists, which is more convenient to collaborate but less convenient to edit on the phone.

I start every work day going over the Daily list. Then I go over the Inbox list, do the quick items immediately, and move others to the prioritized place in the Next list. Then I go over the Next list. If the next task is to work on a project I go over the Inbox / Next of the project.

I use analogous lists for my personal life on my personal Google account.

E-mail 🔗

I read my e-mail inbox only on the phone during the commute, when waiting in line, at the toilet, etc. I classify e-mails so I can deal directly with the important ones when I’m at my laptop.

I use 3 Gmail labels: ‘u’ for urgent, ‘w’ for waiting and ’n’ for next.

I put the ‘u’ label on e-mails I want to address as soon as I get to my laptop. One of the tasks in my Daily list is to address all e-mails with the ‘u’ label.

When I send an e-mail that needs an answer, I mark it with the ‘w’ label. One of the tasks in my Weekly list is to go over such e-mails and decide if I should ask again or give up.

I put the ’n’ label on e-mails I want to address later (e.g. watching the video of a tech talk). One of the tasks in my Monthly list is to process all e-mails with the ’n’ label.

On my laptop I keep one browser tab with ’label:u’ Gmail search results to see when someone replies to one of the important e-mails. I don’t look at the Inbox from laptop, only from the phone, to use the laptop time for the more important tasks.

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Updated on 2022 Dec 18.

DISCLAIMER: This is not professional advice. The ideas and opinions presented here are my own, not necessarily those of my employer.