blog: GTD on paper post

Signed-off-by: Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>

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+---
+title: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks
+date: 2021-06-13
+author: Heartmender
+---
+
+# Using Paper for Everyday Tasks
+
+I have a bit of a reputation of being a very techno-savvy person. People have
+had the assumption that I have some kind of superpowerful handcrafted task
+management system that rivals all other systems and fully integrates with
+everything on my desktop. I don't. I use paper to keep track of my day to day
+tasks. Offline, handwritten paper. I have a big stack of little notebooks and I
+go through them one each month. Today I'm going to discuss the core ideas of my
+task management toolchain and walk you through how I use paper to help me get
+things done.
+
+I have tried a lot of things before I got to this point. I've used nothing,
+Emacs' Org mode, Jira, GitHub issues and a few reminder apps. They all haven't
+quite cut it for me.
+
+The natural place to start from is doing nothing to keep track of my tasks and
+goals. This can work in the short term. Usually the things that are important
+will come back to you and you will eventually get them done. However it can be
+hard for it to be a reliable system. 
+
+[Focus is hard. Memory is fleeting. Data gets erased. Object permanence is a
+myth. Paper sits by the side and laughs.](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
+
+It does work for some people though. I just don't seem to be one of them. Doing
+nothing to keep track of my tasks only really works when there are external
+structures around to help me keep track of things. Standup meetings or some kind
+of daily check-in are vital to this, and they sort of work because my team is
+helping keep everyone accountable for getting work done. This is very dependent
+on the team culture being healthy and on me being somewhere that I feel
+psychologically safe enough to admit when I make a mistake (which I have only
+really felt working at Tailscale). It also doesn't follow me from job to job, so
+changing employers would also mean I can't take my organization system with me.
+So that option is out.
+
+[Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) is a very extensible text editor.
+It has a turing-complete scripting language called Emacs Lisp at its core and
+you can build out just about anything you want with it. As such, many packages
+have been developed. One of the bigger and more common packages is [Org
+Mode](https://orgmode.org/). It is an Emacs major mode that helps you keep track
+of notes, todo lists, timekeeping, literate programming, computational notebooks
+and more. I have used Org Mode for many years in the past and I have no doubt
+that without it I would probably have been fired at least twice.
+
+One of the main philosophies is that Org Mode is text at its core. The whole
+user experience is built around text and uses Emacs commands to help you
+manipulate text. Here's an example Org Mode file like I used to use for task
+management:
+
+```orgmode
+#+TITLE: June 2021
+
+* June 10, 2021
+
+** SRE
+*** TODO put out the fire in prod before customers notice
+Oh god, it's a doozy. The database server takes too long to run queries only
+sometimes on Thursdays. Why thursday? No idea. It just happens. Very
+frustrating. I wonder if God is cursing me.
+
+** Devel
+*** DONE Implement the core of flopnax for abstract rilkefs
+    CLOSED: [2021-06-10 Thu 16:20]
+*** TODO write documentation for flopnax before it is shipped
+
+** Overhead
+*** DONE ENG meeting
+    CLOSED: [2021-06-10 Thu 15:00]
+*** TODO Assist Jessie with the finer points of Rust
+**** References vs Values
+**** Lifetimes
+Programming in Rust is the adventure of a lifetime!
+
+** Personal
+*** DONE Morning meds
+    CLOSED: [2021-06-10 Thu 09:04]
+*** TODO Evening meds
+*** TODO grocery run
+```
+
+Org Mode used to be a core part of my workflow and life. It was everpresent and
+used to keep track of everything. I would even track usage of certain
+recreational substances in Org Mode with a snippet of Emacs Lisp to do some
+basic analytics on usage frequency. Org Mode can live with me and I don't have
+to give it up when I change jobs.
+
+I got out of the habit a while ago and it's been really hard to go back into the
+habit. I still suggest Org Mode to people, but it's no longer the thing that I
+use day to day. It also is hard to use from my tablet (iPad) and my phone
+(iPhone). It also tends to vanish when you close the window, and when you have
+object permanence issues that tends to make things hard.
+
+[I could probably set up something with one of those fancy org-mode frontends
+served over HTTP, but that would probably end up being more effort than it's
+worth for me](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
+
+Another tool I've used for this is my employer's task management tool of choice.
+At past jobs this has ranged from GitHub to Jira. This is a solid choice. It
+keeps everything organized and referenced with other people. I don't have to do
+manual or automated synchronization of information into that ticket tracking
+system to be sure other people are updated. However, you inherit a lot of the
+inertia of how the ticket tracking system of choice is used. At a past job there
+were unironically 17 different states that a ticket could be in. Most of them
+were never used and didn't matter, yet they could not be removed lest it break
+the entire process that the product team used to keep track of things.
+
+Doing it like this works great if your opinions about how issues should be
+tracked agree with your employer's process (if this is the case, you probably
+set up the issue tracking system). As I mentioned before, this also means that
+you have to leave that system behind when you change jobs. If you are someone
+that never really changes jobs, this can work amazingly. I am not one of those
+people.
+
+Something else I've tried is to set up my own private GitHub/Gitea project to
+keep track of things. We used one for organizing our move to Ottawa even. This
+is a very low-friction system. It is easy to set up and the issues will bother
+you in your news feed, so they are everpresent. It's also easy to close the
+window and forget about the repo.
+
+There is also that little hit of endorphins from closing an issue. That little
+rush can help fuel a habit for using the tool to track things, but the rush goes
+away after a while.
+
+[Wait, if you have issues remembering to look at your org mode file or tracker
+board or whatever, why can't you just set up a reminder to update it? Surely
+that can't be that hard to do?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
+
+[Don't you think that if it was that easy, I would already be doing that? Do you
+think I like having this be so hard? Notifications that are repetitive fade into
+the background when I see them too often. I subconsciously filter them out. They
+do not exist to me. Even if it is one keypress away to open the board or append
+to my task list, I will still forget to do it, even if it's
+important.](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
+
+So, I've arrived on paper to keep track on these things. Paper is cheap. Paper
+is universal. Paper doesn't run out of battery. Paper doesn't vanish into the
+shadow realm when I close the window. Paper can do anything I can do with a
+pencil. Paper lets me turn back pages in the notebook and scan over for things
+that have yet to be done. Honestly I wish I had started using paper for this
+sooner. Here's how I use paper:
+
+ - Get a cheap notebook or set of notebooks. They should ideally be small,
+   pocketable notebooks. Something like 30 sheets of paper per notebook. I can't
+   find the cheap notebooks that I bought on Amazon, but I found something
+   similar
+   [here](https://www.amazon.ca/Notebook-Kraft-Cover-Pocket-Squared/dp/B0876LYNYH/).
+   Don't be afraid to buy more than you need. This stuff is really cheap. Having
+   more paper around can't hurt. [Field Notes](https://fieldnotesbrand.com/)
+   works in a pinch, but their notebooks can be a bit expensive. The point is
+   you have many options.
+ - Label it with the current month (it's best to start this at the beginning of
+   a month if you can). Put contact information on the inside cover in case you
+   lose it.
+ - Start a new page every day. Put the date at the top of the page.
+ - Metadata about the day goes in the margins. I use this to keep a log of who
+   is front as well as taking medicine.
+ - Write prose freely.
+ -  TODO items start with a `-`. Those represent things you need to do but
+   haven't done yet.
+ - When the item is finished, put a vertical line through the `-` to make it a
+   `+`.
+ - If the item either can't or won't be done, cross out the `-` to make it into
+   a `*`.
+ - If you have to put off a task to a later date, turn the `-` into a `->`. If
+   there is room, put a brief description of why it needs to be moved or when it
+   is moved to. If there's no room feel free to write it out in prose form at
+   the end of your page.
+ - Notes start with a middot (`·`). They differ from prose as they are not
+   complete sentences. If you need to, you can always turn them into TODO items
+   later.
+ - Write in pencil so you can erase mistakes. Erase carefully to avoid ripping
+   the paper, You hardly need to use any force to erase things.
+ - There is only one action, appending. Don't try and organize things by topic
+   as you would on a computer. This is not a computer, this is paper. Paper
+   works best when you append only. There is only one direction, forward.
+ - If you need to relate a bunch of notes or todo items with a topic, skip a
+   line and write out the topic ending with a colon. When ending the topical
+   notes, skip another line.
+ - Don't be afraid to write in it. If you end up using a whole notebook before
+   the month is up, that is a success. Record insights, thoughts, feelings and
+   things that come to your mind. You never know what will end up being useful
+   later.
+ - At the end of the month, look back at the things you did and summarize/index
+   them in the remaining pages. Discover any leftover items that you haven't
+   completed yet so you can either transfer them over to next month or discard
+   them. It's okay to not get everything done. You may also want to scan it to
+   back it up into the cloud. You may never reference these scans, but backups
+   never hurt.
+
+And then just write things in as they happen. Don't agonize over getting them
+all. You will not. The aim is to get the important parts. If you really honestly
+do miss something that is important, it will come back.
+
+Something else I do is I keep a secondary notebook I call `Knowledge`. It
+started out as the notebook that I used to document errata for my homelab, but
+overall it's turned into a sort of secondary place to record other information
+as well as indexing other details across notebooks. This started a bit on
+accident. One of the notebooks from my big order came slightly broken. A few
+pages fell out and then I had a smaller notebook in my hands. I stray from the
+strict style in this notebook. It's a lot more free flowing based on my needs,
+and that's okay. I still try to separate things onto separate pages when I can
+to help keep things tidy.
+
+I've also been using it to outline blogposts in the form of bullet trees.
+Normally I start these articles as a giant unordered list with sub-levels for
+various details on its parent thing. Each top-level thing becomes a "section"
+and things boil down into either paragraphs or sentences based on what makes
+sense. 
+
+An unexpected convenience of this flow is that the notebooks I'm using are small
+enough to fit under the halves of my keyboard:
+
+<center><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The REAL reason to get
+a split keyboard <a
+href="https://t.co/I3qBMDU5sQ">pic.twitter.com/I3qBMDU5sQ</a></p>&mdash; Xe from
+Within (@theprincessxena) <a
+href="https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1402459138010009605?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June
+9, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async
+src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
+
+This lets me leave the notebooks in an easy to grab place while also putting
+them slightly out of the way until they are needed. I also keep my pencil and
+eraser closeby. When I go out of the house, I pack this month's journal, a
+pencil and an eraser.
+
+Paper has been a great move for me. There's no constant reminders. There's no
+product team trying to psychologically manipulate me into using paper more
+(though honestly that might have helped to build the habit of using it daily).
+It is a very calm technology and I am all for it.
+
+[Is this technology though? This is just a semi-structured way of writing things
+on paper. Does that count as technology?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
+
+[To be honest, I don't know. The line of what is and what is not technology is
+very thin in the best case. I think that this counts as a technology, but
+overall this is a huge It Depends™. You may not think this is "real" technology
+because there's no real electronic component to it. That is a valid opinion,
+however I would like to posit that this is technology in the same way that a
+manual shaving razor is technology. It was designed and built to purpose. If that
+isn't technology, what is? Plus, this way there's no risk of server downtime
+preventing me from using paper!](conversation://Cadey/enby)
+
+Oh, also, if you feel bored and a design comes to mind, don't be afraid to
+doodle on the cover. Make paper yours. Don't worry about it being perfect. It's
+there to help you tell the notebooks apart in the future after they are
+complete.
+
+So far over the last month I've made notes on 49 pages. Most of the TODO items
+are complete. Less than 10% of them failed/were cancelled. Less than 10% of them
+had to roll over to the next day. I assemble my TODO lists based on what I
+didn't get done the previous day. I write each thing out by hand to help me
+remember to prioritize them. When I need something to do, I look down at my
+notebook for incomplete items. I use a rubber band to keep the notebook closed.
+I've been considering slipstreaming the stuff currently in the `Knowledge`
+notebook into the main monthly one. It's okay to go through paper. That's a
+success.
+
+This system works for me. I don't know if it will work for you, but if you have
+been struggling with remembering to do things I would really suggest trying it.
+You probably have a few paper notebooks left over from startups handing them out
+in a swag pack. You probably also have never touched them since you got them.
+This is good. I only really use the small notebooks because I found the more
+fancy bound notebooks were harder to write on the left sides more than the right
+sides. Your mileage may vary.
+
+[I would include a scan of one of my notebook pages here, but that would reveal
+some personal information that I don't really want to put on this blog as well
+as potentially break NDA terms for work, so I don't want to risk that if you can
+understand.](conversation://Cadey/enby)