It’s pretty goofy but for the past year I’ve had monthly calendar printouts hanging on my wall, and each day I put tally marks for how many hours of focused work I did, and usually scrawl a word or two about what I was doing that day, and when I figure out something important I draw a little star on that day of the calendar and write a word or two reminding myself of what it is (and celebrate that night by eating my favorite kind of ice cream sandwich). This is mostly stolen from the book Deep Work (not the ice cream sandwiches though, that’s my own innovation). Having those sheets hanging on my wall is good for “what did I do last week” or “what kinds of stuff was I doing last April” or “oh where has the time gone” type questions to myself.
I also have a to-do list using an online kanban tool and I always move tasks into a Done column instead of just archiving them directly. This is entirely pointless, because now and then I’ll go through the Done column and archive everything. So I added an extra step that does nothing. But it feels nice to get an extra opportunity to revisit the Done column and feel good about how many things I’ve done. :)
It’s pretty goofy but for the past year I’ve had monthly calendar printouts hanging on my wall, and each day I put tally marks for how many hours of focused work I did, and usually scrawl a word or two about what I was doing that day, and when I figure out something important I draw a little star on that day of the calendar and write a word or two reminding myself of what it is (and celebrate that night by eating my favorite kind of ice cream sandwich). This is mostly stolen from the book Deep Work (not the ice cream sandwiches though, that’s my own innovation). Having those sheets hanging on my wall is good for “what did I do last week” or “what kinds of stuff was I doing last April” or “oh where has the time gone” type questions to myself.
I also have a to-do list using an online kanban tool and I always move tasks into a Done column instead of just archiving them directly. This is entirely pointless, because now and then I’ll go through the Done column and archive everything. So I added an extra step that does nothing. But it feels nice to get an extra opportunity to revisit the Done column and feel good about how many things I’ve done. :)