A Post a Day in May #18: Low-tech scores high

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I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. 

Zoom. Webex. MS Teams. FaceTime. Messenger. WhatsApp… We have a myriad of high-tech tools to keep business flowing while we are in lockdown — and we may continue using them, even after we’re able to return to our bricks and mortar offices. They’re available. They enable continued productivity. And many of us find them exhausting. Much has been written about why, so I don’t need to. 

What I do want to write about is the satisfaction I feel in having invented a retro low-tech gadget that helps me stay on top of my revolving To Do list and priority tasks. 

My current home desk is much smaller than my on-campus office desk, so I have less room to spread out and less surface area on which to organize my work into numbered piles that indicate their order of importance. After several weeks of frustrating work-from-home experience, I landed on the solution. 

It has a total of four components: two main and two subordinate; all four together ensure the gadget is fully functional for the user.
  • Main component 1: a 9”x6” plastic container
  • Main component 2: a 6”x2”cardboard box 
  • Sub-component 1: scrap paper, neatly torn into quarters to fit into component 1 
  • Sub-component 2: a writing implement of your choice; mine is an old-fashioned pencil
I have placed main component 1 on the little side cabinet in my home work space, while main component 2 sits on my desk. Every time a meeting, conversation, email or other modality generates a task for me, I reach into component 1, take a piece of paper, use the pencil to write down the task, then pop the paper into main component 2. Every day, I go through all the bits of paper in main component 2 and knock off as many of them as I can. What I can’t, I leave until the next day. I repeat this cycle throughout the week. 

Main component 2, holding tasks. 

Note: I do not write my blog posts during work time, 

but I do need the reminder to keep this particular 
personal priority in the back of my mind 
for later in the day. 
I tell you, it works. I no longer waste time or energy leafing through my notebook to find the buried tasks. I no longer worry about what I’ve forgotten: In its low-tech simplicity, it is effective. And it makes me happy.  

There may well be an app for this, but why would I bother with it when my low-tech gadget does the job to perfection and it cost me precisely zero dollars to implement. In these days of high-tech mania, I’m a sucker for a home-made low-tech solution. 

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Comments

  1. AnnMay 18, 2020 at 8:34 AM

    I love this level of organization. When I was working, I kept a log of all telephone calls and their resolution, and a daily to do list. As soon as I finished one task, I highlighted it, and made a quick note of the solution. At the end of the day, I moved any incomplete task to a new page. It worked for me, and better yet, I could refer to it if there was any question about what I'd done and what I'd left undone. This was helpful if I had to be away, ill or personal day, whatever. The person who filled in for me had a clear outline of what I had done, was in the process of doing, or needed to do. I remember my director coming in one day, in a snit. She looked at my various piles and stated that she could never know what I was doing if I didn't show up for work -- which so far hadn't ever happened. I handed her my log. Problem solved. By the way, I never really figured out what she did for a living. LOL


    ReplyDelete
  2. Amanda Le RougetelMay 18, 2020 at 9:06 AM

    From Val Paape:
    "I really like your post today. Many of us have, perhaps, been “suckered into” a nascent idea that there is a tech solution for everything. Well, people have always loved science fi…But your post shows how this is demonstratively not the case. Sometimes we need to have direct tactile and visual contact with real objects—ones that we can physically manipulate—to remember, understand, and analyze. I am sure that in the world of educational methodology, for example, there would be research into the pros and cons of direct contact vs mediated contact for learning. Although many religious folk would disagree, the evidence suggests that we are still “hopped up” apes who haven’t evolved much from our humble savannah origins. Could be why our technology is often to our detriment rather than our flourishing....Thanks for your post, Amanda. Always something to think about."

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