I think one of the big issues that collaboration and productivity apps miss is that they’re supposed to be tools that help and accommodate each individual user according to what is best for them.
I have really bad adhd and so I think I end up noticing it more because I’ve had to build all the tools I rely on myself and realized how not at all powerful the existing solutions actually are at molding themselves to the user’s needs rather than vice versa.
- I need progressive reminders for deadlines, increasing in frequency when the measure of percent completed and time to deadline gets worse.
- I need undismissable reminders, if an important message comes in and I miss it it’s gone forever.
- I need 15, 5, and 1 minute warnings for meetings.
- I need daily reminders of the things I should be working on that automatically expire so they don’t become noise.
- I need my tools to yell at me if I try to push a commit with a not descriptive enough message, don’t tag a card, and then auto move it to MR once I take it off draft.
- I need when people post messages in the channel looking for reviews that it adds to my daily reminder list and goes off it once it’s merged.
- I need reminders on Friday that I should spend the afternoon prepping cards for handoffs instead of working them.
- I need to yeet random messages into different lists so I can remember things like “found a big make card for it” or “idea for 20% time.”
- I need a weekly report of all the commits I made, cards I touched, and conversations I had so I can take them to my 1-1.
- I need a thing to pull out emails to specific groups and forward them to our group slack otherwise no one will see it.
- I need non critical alerts to also show up on my daily reminder list that drop off it once it’s ack’d or a card is made for it.
- I need alerts when there’s activity on my MRs that are sent as messages and go to my list rather than one of my (literally) 50k weekly emails.
- I need the group lunch order to ping me when it’s actually time to order instead of when it’s announced.
All the tools in their default states don’t actually do anything for you. They create more work and mental load than take it away.
Seriously, I always loved the “bicycle for the mind” perspective on computers as personal personalizable productivity devices
There are few endpoints that can’t be traversed with a bicycle
But software today is a fractal pattern of walled areas within walled gardens. Each location connected with preplanned paths and guardrails. Each construction zone filled with tools that can’t be used elsewhere.
Forging new simple short paths across the diverse information in our lives (such as your “simple” productivity ideas), keeps getting more difficult
Wow. That sounds like hell. You do have my honest sincere sympathy. I just keep a simple prioritised to-do list and it works for me. I have used it to manage everything from large projects to small personal projects.
I have really bad adhd and so I think I end up noticing it more because I’ve had to build all the tools I rely on myself and realized how not at all powerful the existing solutions actually are at molding themselves to the user’s needs rather than vice versa.
- I need progressive reminders for deadlines, increasing in frequency when the measure of percent completed and time to deadline gets worse.
- I need undismissable reminders, if an important message comes in and I miss it it’s gone forever.
- I need 15, 5, and 1 minute warnings for meetings.
- I need daily reminders of the things I should be working on that automatically expire so they don’t become noise.
- I need my tools to yell at me if I try to push a commit with a not descriptive enough message, don’t tag a card, and then auto move it to MR once I take it off draft.
- I need when people post messages in the channel looking for reviews that it adds to my daily reminder list and goes off it once it’s merged.
- I need reminders on Friday that I should spend the afternoon prepping cards for handoffs instead of working them.
- I need to yeet random messages into different lists so I can remember things like “found a big make card for it” or “idea for 20% time.”
- I need a weekly report of all the commits I made, cards I touched, and conversations I had so I can take them to my 1-1.
- I need a thing to pull out emails to specific groups and forward them to our group slack otherwise no one will see it.
- I need non critical alerts to also show up on my daily reminder list that drop off it once it’s ack’d or a card is made for it.
- I need alerts when there’s activity on my MRs that are sent as messages and go to my list rather than one of my (literally) 50k weekly emails.
- I need the group lunch order to ping me when it’s actually time to order instead of when it’s announced.
All the tools in their default states don’t actually do anything for you. They create more work and mental load than take it away.