The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

A bit here and there

We run a great risk these days of spend­ing time look­ing for some­thing we wrote some­where since we do not know exact­ly where we wrote it. You are hav­ing a dig­i­tal con­ver­sa­tion with some­one who sud­den­ly address­es you in anoth­er dig­i­tal chan­nel, and you feel as if you are lis­ten­ing to one of those 1970’s stereo tests on the radio, where you hear a voice that alter­nates between the left and the right speak­er. It tends to get messy and you end up hav­ing infor­ma­tion all over the place, which might result in spend­ing unnec­es­sary time on irrel­e­vant things (such as look­ing for the right thread).

Do this

Take a few min­utes right now and clar­i­fy to your­self what you want to do and save where. You can, for instance, ask your­self ques­tions such as:

1. Using which medi­um will you com­mu­ni­cate with who and about what? Meaning,
   • What tool do you pre­fer using for those quick con­ver­sa­tions with­in your team or office, and which tool should you use for the more exten­sive and detailed exchanges?
   • If you need to com­ment on some­thing, such as some­thing you are con­struct­ing or devel­op­ing with oth­ers, do you do so in the com­ment sec­tion of the tool you are devel­op­ing in, or do you use anoth­er channel?
   • Will you have both per­son­al and work-relat­ed con­ver­sa­tions in all chan­nels, or do you reserve some chan­nels for per­son­al mat­ters only?
2. Where do you make note of what you have to do (and remem­ber, you may only choose one sin­gle location)?
3. When you use the check­list-func­tion in your tools, when and for what pur­pose should you use it (I sug­gest you use it to describe how some­thing is done rather than the fact that it should be done)?
4. Where do you make note of every­thing you agree to do con­cern­ing some­thing you work on with oth­ers? Again, only one loca­tion may be selected.
5. Where do you save dif­fer­ent kinds of infor­ma­tion that might be good to have? Meaning:
   • Where do you keep infor­ma­tion about some­thing that does not come in a doc­u­ment, but which you need to make note of some­where? Which one of your tools is appro­pri­ate for this kind of ​“extra information”?
   • Where will you keep dig­i­tal doc­u­ments about things only you need to have access to? 
   • In what loca­tion will you save doc­u­ments con­cern­ing some­thing you are col­lab­o­rat­ing on with others? 
   • In many of these cas­es, you will need to involve oth­er peo­ple — the ones you com­mu­ni­cate and col­lab­o­rate with — and in some cas­es, you are free to decide on your own what to do.

Act quick­er

If you make it absolute­ly clear to your­self what you keep where and what tool you use for what pur­pose, it will become eas­i­er to nav­i­gate your every­day life at work. You will find what you are look­ing for faster and can spend more of your time doing things that move you for­ward and that are actu­al­ly useful.

What’s your way?

How have you ensured that you are con­sis­tent with how you use your dig­i­tal tools? Please share your best tip in an email to me!

(By the way, have you decid­ed what tool to use for your to-do list?)