Three Things

http://blog.codinghorror.com/three-things/

by bevacqua • 12 years ago

41 20 12 years ago

blog.codinghorror.com

rattray• 12 years ago

But, where do you put those three things? Do you just nebulously "say" them to yourself every morning? When? Should those three things not be concretely articulated? Should they not be staring you in the face throughout the day?

I think it's the "honoring the todo list"and "actually making the daily todo list" that's hard. How do you do that?

zo1• 12 years ago

He's on his soap box, again. Apparently, he's an expert in absolutely everything under the sun. Therefore we must listen to him, err, or something like that.

Treat it like a plain blog. Take it with a grain of salt as it's just one way, one person's opinion. If you like it, great. If not, move along... Just because he's got good advice on certain topics, doesn't mean we should listen to him on everything else. Classic intelligentsia syndrome.

bevacqua2• 12 years ago

This is how I do todo lists, using a zsh alias to create files in my desktop, which is generally otherwise empty

https://github.com/bevacqua/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/aliases...

ToastyMallows• 12 years ago

This is not a bad idea actually. I'd be pissed if my desktop had icons on it and want to complete them quickly.

bevacqua2• 12 years ago

That's how I feel too, which is why I find that command effective.

nwalter08• 12 years ago

Amen Jeff. I had a todo-list problem with digital tasks that I needed to do in the future. That led me to the startup that I'm running right now. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/later/id725222144?mt=8

jowiar2• 12 years ago

The problem is never dealing with the things you have to do today -- It's dealing with the things you don't. Whether it's things you need to do sometime in the future, or things that you may never need to do at all, or the things that you want to do.

For me, keeping track of the three things I'm doing today is far less of a problem than making the decision what those things are, and in being able to file things away so I can say to myself (and to others), "If it's important, I'll deal with it (and won't forget that it exists), but for now it's not my top priority".

codinghorror2• 12 years ago

Isn't that the whole point of this approach? The hard thing about hard things is deciding what they are.

jowiar2• 12 years ago

The point I was trying to make is that, over the course of the day, things come up. Most of them I don't need to deal with now, I might need to deal with them in the future, but I don't want the cognitive load of worrying about remembering them while I'm trying to do other things. Hence, I write them down. Maybe "thing #1" of my three things some days is "figure out what the other two things for today" should be, but it's nice to have some sort of bucket to dump thoughts into for processing later. Call it a remembrall, or a todo list, but it's silly to pretend it doesn't exist.

Walkman• 12 years ago

Good for him that he have only three things to worry about every day, but it's pretty silly to assume everybody else have that much free time, and only three things to worry about any given day...

I understand he means three main things by "Three Things" for the day, but why the earth would you want to memorize a shopping list or dozens of small things you need to do? I found that keeping small things OUT of my head actually helps me very much because, they aren't popping up throughout the day as I know they are safe and I just need to look them up and do them eventually. David Allen suggests this in his GTD book, [1] and it really free my mind from anxiety of forgettings, losing things! Great advice.

Also every issue tracker in the world is a huge TODO list, I'm sure he has a couple if TODOs in one of those. ;)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

bybjorn• 12 years ago

Agreed. GTD can be combined with this though (if you just ignore most of his post and focus on the "Three things of the day" point). ZTD calls these three things for MITs (Most Important Tasks) -- http://zenhabits.net/ztd-habit-3-plan/

gatehouse• 12 years ago

I choose to interpret this in a way that isn't anti-planning, just anti-scheduling. Pmarca wrote up a similar anti-system a while ago, although it is more structured: http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html

cjf4• 12 years ago

What a pedantic article. The effectiveness of to do lists, or any other work management tool, is extremely sensitive to both the nature of the work and the nature of the person.

Some people can be effective thinking about 3 things all day? Great. I envy them. I'm not one of them. To do lists help me minimize the transition time after I finish something and quickly prioritize. But that's not everyone. I'm sure there are others best served by thinking about 3 things.

But to pretend that this method or any other is best for everyone is childish.

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Also, when I imagined him slapping the thing onto pillows, I imagined that the screen cracked anyway. What a jerk. He should have asked me to imagine one of those stunt man long fall air bags. I also imagined that I used a nice tablet computer instead of an ordinary notepad, but that can't be helped. My imagination likes nice things.

For me, keeping even as few as 3 things in my head all day instead of writing them down is needlessly tying up 3 mental registers that could be used to speed up the thing I am doing right now.

Lambdanaut• 12 years ago

There's no reason to throw away crutches. Hell, I already implement his "three things" method. The only difference is afterwards I actually write down the three things so that I stay on target all day.

columbo• 12 years ago

Hrm. Our entire lives are task lists of some sort.

+ Your calendar with your list of meetings

+ Your inbox with your list of unread emails

+ Your snail mail

+ Your personal needs (mow the lawn, paint the bedroom)

+ Voicemails, text messages, facebook pings

+ Your personal goals (learn to speak spanish)

Every single one of these things is a task. I can't imagine Jeff Atwood is saying that his day is:

1) Write a blog post

2) Do job

3) Do personal life

Does checking and responding emails not count? Does checking text messages from friends and family not count? Does making sure your bills are being paid not count? What about remembering to go to home depot to get drywall or getting your oil changed, or getting groceries or learning to make alfredo?

pkaler• 12 years ago

This is shockingly bad advice.

Jeff Atwood doesn't like TODO lists[1]. Jeff Atwood estimates that all projects will take 6 to 8 weeks[2]. Coincidence?

Be a pro. Learn the blocking and tackling of your craft. Read Getting Things Done[3].

Use a tool like Evernote for ubiquitous capture. Take notes at your stand-up meeting. Take notes at all meetings. Be the keener in the front row at conferences taking notes.

Put your TODOs in a tool like Things or OmniFocus.

Do a weekly review. Do a monthly review. Do a quarterly review. Do an annual review.

Set goals and KPIs for yourself every week, month, quarter, and year.

Get peers and mentors to give you continuous feedback. Ask them to rate you from 1 to 10 on different skill-sets and facets

Put everything time-based in your calendar. Going to the gym? Put that in the calendar. Going on a date? Put that in the calendar.

Get a paper file for stuff you can't digitize. Get a scanner. Scan stuff into Evernote or use your phone/tablet camera.

Use a pomodoro timer and count the number of sprints you can finish in a day. Use a tool like Harvest if you bill hourly. [4][5]

Trying to find a job? Trying to close consulting clients? Create a pipeline in Trello.

Use RescueTime and Timings.App to measure where your time goes. [6]

Be a pro. Don't listen to this shockingly bad advice.

  [1]: http://blog.codinghorror.com/todont/
  [2]: http://blog.codinghorror.com/on-our-project-were-always-90-done/
  [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
  [4]: http://bookofhook.blogspot.ca/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html
  [5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
  [6]: http://timingapp.com

codinghorror2• 12 years ago

Shockingly bad advice, eh?

http://daslee.me/productivity-by-ron-conway

"I finally settled on a system. I asked Ron [Conway] what he does. It’s pretty simple. In the morning, he sets three things to do for the day. If he does all three, then it’s a good day. If he doesn’t, then it’s a bad day."

GeekOnIce• 12 years ago

Yes, shockingly bad. You seem to have missed a key part of that link - I'll put it here for you:

"Tactically, I take 3 things from my Asana and label them with “@TODAY.” If I get them done, it’s a good day. If not, then it’s a bad day. Simple but not easy."

There may be 3 things to do that day, but it all initially comes off of the TODO list that you don't want to use for some reason.

fixie• 12 years ago

This is actually the very reason behind a side project & successful Kickstarter I've been working on called Taco (http://tacoapp.com). Taco essentially aggregates all of my tasks across multiple task services (Asana, Basecamp, GitHub Issues, Trello, Starred GMail Emails, + ~40 others) and puts them on a single screen. This effectively allows me to prioritize across my entire life rather than within a single project. The added benefit is that it helps me stay focused throughout the day since I'm not switching between apps. At the end of each day, I just set aside the tasks I want to work on for the next day - very similar to what Jeff is suggesting here.

Three Things

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