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