My Workflow - In a Nutshell
I am always curious as to how people stay organised so I thought I'd share how I attempt to stay organised, what follows is a list of some apps and strategies I employ to maximise my time. I hope you find it interesting and perhaps you will consider using one of these apps or considering the way I use one of these apps to to improve your own productivity. Either way, let's jump in.
I find that I predominantly use 5 apps to manage my work commitments, personal projects and university notes. These are: One-drive, 2Do, Habits, Fantastical and Trello. All of these are wonderful apps, and each of them provide a small slice of what I use and need.
I use Trello the least, I only really use it for larger personal projects, I used it to manage itam and rapp, my two biggest projects on github thus far. I found this worked very well particularly for rapp because I was collaborating with others and they could then quickly add tasks and see where we headed which made the idea of a shared vision very easy to manage. As well as this it provided Github integration so a commit could be assigned to a card to indicate the job was finished. It also helped seperate the tasks into distinct groups. Bug Fixes, Frontend, Backend and UI. This made it easier to manage for me and easier for members of the team to log on and get working very quickly.
Next I use Fantastical to schedule big events, these include things like exams, family gatherings and sporting events. Generally this just gave me a broad overview of what was coming up that was very important and that I shouldn't miss.
Habits is the app I use day to day and keeps me motivated. It simply contains checkboxes for every day of the week and with a remarkably nice UI provides a brief indicator of how I'm going investing time for myself each day. I aim to read, write, code, meditate, workout and run between 3-7 times a week for different tasks and Habits keeps me on track making sure no habits lag behind and encouraging me to continue learning and thriving.
One-drive I use during my lectures to take notes, it's a great tool that sync with my phone and is stored safely in the cloud. This gives me some peace of mind that my notes will not be lost. I really like also the versatility of the notes with compatibility for check boxes, lists and highlighting which all supplement my learning well.
Last but not least is 2Do which is my most used of these apps and runs my day to day life. I have lists for Personal, Work, Uni, Books and TV Shows/Movies. I find it incredibly helpful in staying organised for uni as I put in all my homework and assignments, as well as any required pre-reading. I also use it a lot for my work so I can make notes of what needs to be done and systematically work through these tasks. Most of all I find it good for always having a place to write down what to do, because this simple act frees your mind to let it go and think about other things. As well as this having all my most prominent tasks in the same place allow me to select from a broad range of tasks whenever I'm bored and tempted to resort to doing nothing much at all. The fact is, there is always many productive things you can do, with an hour or even a minute, but this time is so easily lost. People complain often of all the things they wish they had the time for, yet there are so many times where we opt for the easiest option, when a little direction could be such a positive step forward.
Anyway that is essentially my workflow, I hope you have found it interesting, and perhaps one of these apps can help you. I have certainly found them helpful. I'm also keen to hear how you all stay organised so feel free to drop me a line on any of the social media listed below. I'm always on the lookout for productivity apps that make a big difference and work very smoothly, so I'd love to hear what other tools people find helpful.
- etopiei (10/5/17)