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--- task_tracking [2024/01/09 07:37] – created qlyoung
+++ task_tracking [2025/06/18 14:15] (current) – note importance of seeing stickies qlyoung
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 When I was in my teens I used to keep all my tasks in my head. Occasionally if I had something with more details than I could remember I would write it down on a notepad. Around the second half of my 20s I started getting really into personal databases and task tracking. I'll write another page on notetaking solutions, but this one is focused on task tracking.
+==== 2025 ====
+As of 2025, I now do all task tracking using sticky notes on my refrigerator and computer monitor.
+The fridge system is:
+  - Left door - long term goals, thoughts. For example, places I want to travel this year, big ideas I want to pursue.
+  - Right door - Short term tasks
+These are organized in rows. For the right door, on the top row are smaller items that can be quickly knocked out or time sensitive items that need to happen soon. Items on lower rows are in roughly priority order. On the left door there's no real structure.
+Things that ABSOLUTELY must happen tomorrow go on a sticky note on my computer monitor.
+The problem with every other system, and especially all computerized systems, is that I have to remember to LOOK at the system. When I know I have a lot of items in there, anxiety prevents me from opening the app at all. Sticky notes on the fridge force me to look, which empirically results in execution.
+Interesting corollary is that this only became viable when I moved this year into a place where the fridge is located in the main living area (big studio-style space). In my old place the fridge was in the kitchen, which I only ever went into for food and bev. So probably the main key is that the stickies are located somewhere you can't miss them.
 ==== notion ====
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 ==== obsidian tasks ====
-In mid 2023 I moved off of Notion to Obsidian for various reasons, some of which I mentioned in [[my_web|elsewhere]]. In the process I lost my notes-integrated kanban as well. I needed a new task-tracking solution, and having done that job in my notes app before, I resolved to try to do it in Obsidian.
+In mid 2023 I moved off of Notion to Obsidian for [[my_web|various reasons]]. In the process I lost my notes-integrated kanban as well. I needed a new task-tracking solution, and having done that job in my notes app before, I resolved to try to do it in Obsidian.
 When I switch to a new platform for anything, I like to try the Happy Path. In other words, I want to use the software according to what its users and developers consider to be its strengths. For task tracking in Obsidian, that is the [[https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Introduction|Tasks]] plugin. This is fundamentally a plugin that adds a query and metadata layer on top of markdown checklists.
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 {{ :img_0705.mp4 |}}
-And all of this syncs flawlessly with calDAV. I can whip out my phone, type a task into the quick add bar, hit enter and put my phone away, and it'll be there in the task viewer on Nextcloud. Furthermore, since tasks with due dates are also calendar items, they appear on my calendar so I get an overview of everything I'm going to do just by looking at my calendar.
+And all of this syncs flawlessly with CalDAV. I can whip out my phone, type a task into the quick add bar, hit enter and put my phone away, and it'll be there in the task viewer on Nextcloud. Furthermore, since tasks with due dates are also calendar items, they appear on my calendar so I get an overview of everything I'm going to do just by looking at my calendar.
 This all probably sounds very trivial, but I've never used a task tracking solution where all the pieces worked together so well. It's really slick.

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