A Reminder Engine
Ben Brooks:
I don’t need areas or projects to do my work effectively. I don’t need complex chaining rules and sequences. I don’t need start dates or tags. In late November I realized that while Things still worked fine for me, I was using it not for task management any longer — but instead I was using it as a reminder engine.
I think all I need is a Reminder engine, I am pretty good at getting my tasks done once I am reminded of them.
I’ve been thinking about how working as a manager differs from working as an individual contributor. One thing I’ve noticed is that my day to day work as a manager has become more asynchronous.
Projects tend to be composed of a series of pings and responses with the odd timeout when I haven’t heard back from someone.
This post from Ben resonates with me because I feel that my productivity system is more useful when it reminds me to do things rather than helps me break down the steps of a particular task.