

Three Things - bevacqua
http://blog.codinghorror.com/three-things/

======
pkaler
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

~~~
codinghorror
Shockingly bad advice, eh?

[http://daslee.me/productivity-by-ron-conway](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
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.

------
Walkman
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done)

~~~
bybjorn
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/](http://zenhabits.net/ztd-habit-3-plan/)

------
jowiar
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".

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

~~~
jowiar
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.

------
rattray
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
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.

------
columbo
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?

------
fixie
This is actually the very reason behind a side project & successful
Kickstarter I've been working on called Taco
([http://tacoapp.com](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.

------
nwalter08
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](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/later/id725222144?mt=8)

------
Lambdanaut
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.

------
cjf4
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
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.

------
gatehouse
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](http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html)

------
bevacqua
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...](https://github.com/bevacqua/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/aliases#L5-L11)

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

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

