Automating your task list creation and focusing on what matters
A major distinction from my previous engineering position to my current role as CTO is the number of small tasks I have. As an engineer, on any given week, I’d have two to three big tasks and about five to ten small ones. It was simple to track what I would be working on throughout the day, and I could generally trust my memory to remember everything. Currently, the number of tasks on my to-do list is more than fifty in total, twenty of which are due today. I can’t name more than five, which means that if I had to trust my wits with this, I would be in deep trouble.
With all of these new tasks, the challenge became prioritization and timeliness. Some of my core responsibilities include:
- Addressing client requests.
- Improving the team’s process.
- Improving the company’s process.
- Mediating internal discussions.
- Helping the team with technical decisions.
In my first attempt to keep track of things, I bought a paper notebook. I would write every task on it, and every morning I would work on the items in the order I wrote them. The problem with this approach was that if something was critical, I would have to address it first. If I didn’t have time for the first one, I would need to move it to the next day. When this scenario happens once or twice, it’s okay. In a complex environment like mine though, it happens too often. At some point, I had thirty-two tasks spread across different pages mixed between completed, and not yet done; it was a mess.
At some point, I realized it was impossible to keep track of everything using a paper notebook. In my search for a more straightforward way to create dynamic task lists I found Todoist. Todoist worked well with my process, and gave me a better idea of what was waiting for me daily.
I still had a problem to solve: I had too many new tasks. Sometimes they came from email, sometimes Slack, and let’s not forget the dozens of calls a week. I was adding everything by hand, and realized I needed to automate it in some way.
Looking to solve this challenge, I found Zapier to be an excellent assistant. Through it, I could send tasks to my to-do list without having to type everything. My first test was to send a task to Todoist by starring it on Slack. I fell in love with the idea of not having to copy and paste any more.
Below you have the most notable automation examples that I’ve been using.
Tools used:
How I build my “To read list” from Slack
- Slack — When someone posts a management link I can tag 📗in the message and it goes to my Todoist “To Read” project with the tag “Management”.
- Slack — When someone posts an engineering link I can tag 📘in the message and it goes to my Todoist “To Read” project with the tag “Engineering”.
- Slack — When someone posts a none of the above link I can tag 📖 in the message and it goes to my Todoist “To Read” project.
- GetPocket /Chrome — When I’m in a page and I want to add it to my Todoist “To Read” project, I press “ctrl + P” and it adds the page to Pocket, which sends it to todoist.
How I keep up with what happens on the company
- Slack — When my name is mentioned in a channel that I have access to I receive an item on my Todoist “Mentions” project.
- Slack — When I need to take action based on a Slack message I just need to star it to receive an item on my Todoist “Work” project.
- Gmail — When I need to take action based on an Email message I just need to star it to receive an item on my Todoist “Work” project.
- Github — When someone adds me to a Github review it goes to my Todoist “Work” project.
Bonus:
Lately, I’ve been doing some effort to stop overworking, and Goliath has an interesting way to warn me about it.
