My 5 favorite apps that help me organize my work
Micke Kring
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4 min read
Sometimes I get questions about the apps I use to organise myself, my tasks and the projects I’m tinkering with. After testing a bunch of different tools over many years, I’ve settled on five that work great for me. The most important thing I’ve concluded, though, is that no tool in the world creates structure. Structure is something you have to possess yourself — and keep developing. The tools are just an extension of the kind of structure that I find works for me.
Why is structure so important to me? For me, structure is about having a way of working that lets me have a good work environment without feeling stressed about not really knowing what’s going on, about things “just popping up”, only having time to put out fires and always feeling like I’m last to the party. All this while managing to have many projects running simultaneously. In the end it’s about wanting to have fun at work. So… Here are my 5 apps/tools in no particular order. What are yours? Drop a comment!
The most important thing I’ve concluded, though, is that no tool in the world creates structure.
Whiteboard
When it comes to brainstorming projects or thinking about processes, the old classic whiteboard is a favourite tool. Something happens when I stand, walk, draw, pull arrows, write and erase. The basics of most things I work on start here and can live here for weeks. After that I photograph it and file it for further use and digitisation of the analogue. Even though the whiteboard isn’t an app per se, it is one in my world.
Example. What started on the whiteboard in the image above resulted in a large flow of IT hygiene, where the image below describes the student’s perspective.
Notes
Word processors with documents in folders have never been my thing. It’s extremely rare that I need to write official documents and have access to all the functionality a word processor offers — and when it comes to writing quickly, Notes (MacOS and iOS) is a perfect tool for me with sync across all my devices. Very few features and it starts quickly. Many of the photos I take of my whiteboard end up here too, for further processing. Most things can actually be drag-and-dropped in here. Documentation, thoughts and ideas, collaboration documents, links, tips and tricks and a bunch of other stuff live here together.
Things
When it comes to list management (to-do) of projects, bugs, cases and other stuff, Things (MacOS and iOS) is my main friend. Here I’ve created different categories where I put everything. Things that are current are in front of me and every day I skim through the list. Here I jot down quickly, for example, when I’ve sent an email to someone about a case and when I get a reply. That way I can send reminders and follow up. For larger projects I also create checklists in my tasks. So it works for big and small. The nice thing is also scheduling future events, where you choose when it should pop up. So everything related to yearly events sits there and pops up when it’s getting close as recurring events. Then you can go on and book time to fix it in the calendar.
Calendar
Of course the calendar is a big part of creating structure. Here I plan and add what I should do based on Things and email. The calendar is of course public and the information here syncs to my work calendar and is also displayed on the screen outside my office, so people know if I’m on site or not. Naturally everything also syncs across all my devices. Every term I analyse what I allocated my time to and whether I managed to prioritise what I wanted to prioritise. Here you can see my room screen mickekring.se/stats/room/b212a/
Finally the email client with its mail must be included. 80% of all communication for me goes via email. The two biggest categories of mail I need to act on are really (1) simple matters and (2) less simple matters. Simple matters are things I can solve immediately. The less simple matters, which contain many components, go into Things so I can keep track of them. I group email so I can plan it into the calendar and run the same type of tasks for efficiency.
What are your best tips?
Now I’d really like to hear what tools or apps you use, or maybe you just have a good tip regarding structure? Please post a comment!