The internet is full of “productivity hacks” — much like “get-rich-quick-schemes”- these are often over-hyped and unsustainable tricks that you’ll probably try out for a day, with less than satisfying results.

Without much splendour, I present to you a truly sustainable and effective productivity tool: taking notes.

In this article, I’ll share some techniques that might enhance your productivity with the simple habit of note-taking.

Finding the right tool for the job

Taking notes should not be a process that is complicated. The charm that we find with using pen and paper is much ado about the simplicity of picking up a pen and scribbling down whatever needs to be noted.

The market is full of solutions: From Google Keep to Evernote to Microsoft OneNote. None of these can simply or effectively replace the good ole pen and paper notebook. Instead, each of these has some mechanisms in place that make for a very rigid experience.

• Google Keep is akin to sticky notes — there is very little space for organization and it thrives on short-lived notes.
• Microsoft OneNote is incredibly feature-rich and not very lightweight. It goes in the direction of various notebooks, making it over-organized and your notes are inaccessible.
• Evernote is very similar to OneNote, sans the feature richness. It’s a clunky notebook experience that wants to sell its paid version as hard as possible.

What we’re looking for is something that allows us to scribble, yet also provides a structured way of writing more elaborate notes. Something that is lightweight, filled with concise features without feeling over-encumbered.

Something like Bytebase.

Note: since I’ve published this article, Bytebase has been renamed to Stashpad.

Bytebase defaults to the “Untitled” bucket, where we can scribble our thoughts. It also allows us to create our own (sub-)folders, called buckets and sub-buckets, for much more structured note-taking sessions when needed.

Now that we’re geared up, let’s look at 3 easy techniques to start taking notes.

Fleeting thoughts should be noted.

The problem with fleeting thoughts is that they are, well, fleeting. However, these thoughts are the ones that lead to much productivity.

This is where the “Untitled” bucket, or your scribble playground, shines. Simply note down every thought that pops up in your head during an untimeous opportunity.

Imagine you are in a heavy flow state, coding away at whatever problem you are solving. Suddenly, you think “I need to reply to that email from support” or “hey, this system should live somewhere else”. You can not afford to spend time on either of these at this exact moment, so you push them to the side. Only to have them pop up again 30 minutes later — or worse, never again.

Here, jotting these thoughts down lightens the burden. Now you are free to continue with your state of flow, comfortably knowing that these urgent tasks or brilliant ideas will get the attention they deserve later. You can read more about this in Chris Bailey’s Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction.

Keep track of the people that you are mentoring

If you are a manager, you know the importance of keeping track of your team members’ progress and development.

It is incredibly important to be able to concisely discuss progress topics with them, and being able to bring up examples is often the most effective way to make the learning tangible.

Very similar to noting down your fleeting thoughts, is to also note down the relevant examples and scenarios that you want to bring up in your next 1-on-1. Here, we can use the structured aspect of Bytebase to create a bucket for each of our team members, where we can jot down these notes to reference later.

Do status dumps

Context switching is expensive. We should take every effort to reduce this cost. One incredibly efficient effort is writing a status dump every day.

This is a simple note that consists of two sentences with the structure: “Today, I [did the following thing(s)]. My next step is to [whatever your next step is]”.

The idea is to then revise this status dump the following morning. This act of revision brings the context of the previous day right back to you, and you can easily jump right back into what you were busy with. You can read more about status dumps here.

Again, here you can either use the “Untitled” bucket or you can create a special “status dumps” bucket. Whatever works for you. As long as you look at it tomorrow morning.

I hope to have enabled you with some simple steps on how one can effectively increase their productivity with the simple act of taking notes. I’ve found these habits to be incredibly useful, especially in the context of leading and mentoring other engineers, while still writing and contributing to code myself.