Eric’s life hacks #2: Take daily notes at work

One of my best work productivity improvements I’ve made in the past year is super simple: every day, write out the tasks I hope to work on during the day, and end the day by writing out an outline of what I plan to do tomorrow. Each day gets it’s own text file. I don’t back them up anywhere because they meant to be ephemeral, but backing up would be fine too.

Why it works:

1. Taking time to plan my day keeps me focused on my top priorities.
2. Taking notes about what I plan to do tomorrow reduces cognitive load: I can start my workday with context about where I left off and what I need to continue on today. Relatedly, this practice allows me to stop thinking about work when I’m done for the day. Rather than trying to keep all the context in my head and continue actively churning on problems, I can let it go knowing that I have saved the relevant context for myself.
3. Using a new file for each day is important because it keeps the list from getting too long. It forces you to actively evaluate each item on the list every day and only carry forward things that are important to carry over. You don’t feel guilty about things falling off the list, which is a natural part of life.

Disclaimer: I did not invent this life hack and I did not meaningfully improve upon it, but I’ve found it so useful that I wanted to spread the word. I think this is fairly similar to the Getting Things Done methodology, or it might even be identical, it’s been a while since I’ve read it.