# Get Things Done by Tracking Them

*December 30, 2019* | #career-advice

As a new data scientist, my life was pretty easy: come in, work on one big
problem, go home. But as I became more comfortable in my role, I started
taking on new responsibilities: mentor new hires, improve internal processes,
attend planning meetings and follow up, and so on.

By the time I was running a team, I no longer had one thing I was focusing on
a day; instead, I had dozens. Often these things would only take 15--30 minutes
to do, but I would have to fit them in with all my meetings. My strategy of
"remember what I need to do today" stopped working because I just had too many
things to do, and items were constantly added and removed.

I needed a strategy; what I came up with was a version of [David
Allen's][allen] [Getting Things Done][gtd]. Here is how I do it.

[allen]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Allen_(author)
[gtd]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

## Trello

The key insight of the Getting Things Done framework is that there should be
**one** place where tasks are recorded. I was storing tasks in my notes---both
the electronic and paper versions---in my email using the "important" flag,
and in my brain which meant I had to check multiple places when I had an
opening in my schedule to complete a task. I decided the one place to track
tasks would be [Trello][trello] because adding and arranging tasks is easy, it
supports my computer and phone, and has enough [power-ups](#useful-power-ups)
that I can use to customize my workflow.

[trello]: https://trello.com/

I set up six columns named as follows (yes, with the emoji):

- **🗃️ Backlog**: Tasks which are not urgent or not ready to start; a lot of
  "someday" tasks end up here.

- **📥 Inbox**: The landing place for new tasks where I focus on quick entry,
  not on correctness.

- **☀️ Do This Week**: Tasks to do this week.

- **📅 Do Today**: Tasks to do today.

- **✅ Done**: Finished tasks.

- **🎓 Learning**: Books, articles, and papers that I want to read, classes I
  want to take, etc.

## Triage

Every morning I triage my tasks by taking one of two actions:

1. If the task can be done in 5 minutes, I do it immediately.

2. If the task can't be completed quickly, I move it to the correct column and
   make sure all the meta data like title are descriptive.

Triaging mostly means moving tasks from the **Inbox** and the **Backlog** to
one of the **Do** columns. On Monday I also make sure to take a moment to
think about my week and fill up the **Do This Week** column. Everyday I think
about what I'm going to need to get done that day and move those tasks to the
**Do Today** column.

When I have time to complete some tasks, I look at **Do Today** and pick
something I can fit in, and do it. Then I move the task to **Done**.

The **Learning** column is special, it is where I store links to things I want
to read, but did not have time to when I encountered them. If I'm honest, it's
mostly a place where I store links I find on Twitter when I'm on my phone.

## Capturing Tasks

A good friend told me that the key to this system was that _"you can't block
on IO"_, meaning it must be easy to record a task and that you should not
worry about getting it recorded perfectly. Triage is when you can clean up any
typos and add context.

There are three places where I capture tasks:

- **My Computer**: Here I often write out a long task and put it directly into
  the correct column because the computer makes data entry easy.

- **In My Email**: I use an Outlook plugin that takes an email and turns it
  directly into a task in Trello. These tasks end up in the _Inbox_ and I triage
  them later. This lets me go through the dozens (or hundreds) of emails and
  quickly get the ones that require action turned into a task.

- **On The Go**: I use the Trello app on my phone, and I have a widget that
  lets me add a card with the press of a button. Just like email, this puts it
  into the _Inbox_ column for later triage. I find using the dictation feature
  of my phone makes adding tasks really fast.

## Useful Power-Ups

Trello has some useful addons called "power-ups". I found two power-ups to be
useful (although the free plan only allows you to use one power-up at a time):

- **Card Repeater**: This power-up lets you schedule a card to reappear. I
  used it for things that have to happen on a fixed schedule like "plan for the
  weekly team meeting" and "fill out the project status update". I _also_ used
  it for things I wanted to get in the habit of doing, like "ask for feedback".
  To this end I set three "ask for feedback" tasks appear on my board every
  Monday so I could get in the habit of asking.

- **Card Aging**: This power-up faded cards that hadn't been touched for a
  while. This let me see what tasks were being ignored and let me re-evaluate
  if they were still worth doing.

This is how I get things done as a data scientist. It is pretty simple, but
effective, and easy to put your own spin on it. Give it a try!

## Related Posts
- [A Career Involves Luck: My Annotated Resume](/blog/my-luck-resume/)
- [The Pyramid and the Spire: Management and Individual Contributor Tracks](/blog/management-vs-ic-the-pyramid-and-the-spire/)
- [Data Science, Compensation, and Asking for Money](/blog/data-science-asking-for-more-money/)