Work has been getting crazier in the past week or two. We are now planning on being online for a while, and the curriculum work that has resulted is growing rapidly. There are many courses to rewrite as we experiment, on the fly, to figure out what tools we want to use (or avoid). I’ve been put in charge of these experiments, and it’s a much larger logistical task than I’ve ever had to deal with. It pales in comparison to what others have done, but it’s quite a doozy on my end.
Several months ago, I started using the Google Tasks add-on to Gmail to keep track of things I need to do. While my work does have some task-management, I treat it as more “company wide”. Not everything gets a task made, some things are word-of-mouth, or there are things that I just need to do for myself that I’ll bring someone in on later. So, I started using this Tasks sidebar as a very simple check-list. I would add tasks that I needed to do, order them roughly by importance, and check them off once done. I could even make separate lists (although I’ve had a hard time using them consistently.) This has worked for a while, and probably could still work if I really wanted to avoid something more powerful. But with the increased level of responsibility, and a general desire to take this quarantine time to improve my organization, I’ve made a hard turn to another tool.
On the excellent podcast Connected, they were talking about various note-taking services. They mentioned Notion. In particular, they said that it wasn’t for them. But I was intrigued by what I heard, and I gave it a look. It turns out, after a half-hour of being rather lost, it fits into my mental model perfectly.
Notion markets themselves as a jack-of-all-trades. They have several different types of “blocks” that you can use to build whatever you want. Whether it’s a note-taking system, a to-do list, a roadmap, a personal journal, or a task-management system, you can probably get it done with the tools they offer. I’ve started building up several pages in it.
In my “Work” workspace, I have personalized versions of the task-management boards the company uses. I have reorganized the tasks in a way that makes sense to me, and added details that wouldn’t make sense to provide in the company-wide version of these tasks. I’ve also created a daily agenda page. Since working from home, I’ve been using my calendar to keep track of time and allot it to various tasks, but I can do that more simply with my current system. There’s more refining to do when it comes to cross-referencing tasks, but it’s a massive improvement over Tasks.
On the personal side I have more freedom to play around with it. The first thing I set up is a daily journal; that’s very simple, and the markdown interface is nice. I also transferred my list of finished books into a nice table, and also have a task-management board to keep track of any writing tasks (this blog post included). If I have an idea, I can throw it on that board. Since Notion is available on literally every device (even Linux since they have a good browser version), I’m interested to see how this affects my own system.
The title of this post still holds though. Organizing my personal life sucks in the same way that trying to eat healthy (or at least eat less) sucks after several years of doing the opposite. But it’s a breath of fresh air, and will definitely benefit me in the long run. It’s also another step in the Year of Routine, which is my yearly theme. This tool is certainly not for everyone; I’m not evangelizing it like many other users are, because it has its drawbacks. But so far it’s been fun to play around with, and I’m going to give it an earnest shot.