1) I use Habitica to track daily tasks and things I intend to do long-term. It's a site that lets you turn your chores into a game. You gain experience, fight monsters, accept quests, earn weapons, armor, pets, and mounts, and, of course, get your shit done. It doesn't cost anything to sign up or play, but there are special things you can only earn by donating. None of it is required, though, and they give you plenty to do without opening your wallet. It's kept me honest and on time for a year or so now. I can highly recommend it if games and competition are your sort of motivator.
2) For writing, I keep an "ideas file" on Google Drive. I am most definitely the kind of person who'll get a fantastic idea while out and about and forget it by the time I get home. With the ideas file, as long as I can get to a computer, phone, or tablet, I can add whatever new thoughts slipped into my head and have it waiting for me to expand upon when I get home. Plus, I have a list of every idea (backed up, too) and all the notes so that I don't forget anything. Without it, I'd probably only have half a dozen story ideas I can remember instead of... well, an absurdly high number that'll keep me busy for a few...
decades.
I need to implement something like this for work, as well. And then, and this is the troublesome part, I need to remember I have it.
What do you do to help you remember things?
After too many lost ideas and dreams I've actually gotten pretty good at writing things down immediately. I prefer using Evernote for this because a linear file with everything in it drives me BONKERS. I like that Evernote lets me put each thing in a separate file and tag it. I also like having separate notebooks for drafts, plot bunnies (tagged by size), structural things, etc. If I ever want the numbers all I have to do is search the tag or title I want. It's imperative for me to have the ability to edit from multiple devices (otherwise CHAOS ensues), so I'm glad it syncs. EVERYTHING goes in: story ideas, stood I've learned about general stuff, stuff I've learned about specific stuff, character notes, story arc notes, plot bunnies, shit to remember[1], etc. I keep all new notes in a notebook called Inbox. Anything I have to scribble down in a hurry goes there. Every so often I clean it out by tagging, moving, and deleting stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs for not forgetting stuff at work, we are required to open a ticket for everything do.
I mean EVERYTHING.
Anything that takes longer than 15 minutes, that is. If ever something comes up at work via email, I either do it immediately, open a ticket if it's going too take longer than 15 minutes, or flag it. If I flag it, it goes on a post it note that gets stuck to my monitor until it's done, at which point I get to crumple it up and throw it away.
Speaking of which... *rips off ALL the post its, which is good because my monitor was starting to look like Big Bird*
[1]I'm not kidding. I have a tag called shit to remember. It shows up on all my lists of things to learn/remember.
Thank you for mentioning Habitica. I've never heard of it before, and after some fiddling on it I've seen just how awesome it is!
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