How to survive multitasking. The free, little-known method that helps

Disclaimer:

This is my first story on this topic. Every day I have to deal with a large number of tasks in a variety of projects and areas. Once, I was looking for an answer to the question of what the best approach to case planning was. I’ve read lots of articles and tried plenty of tools; however, only one helped me. But I’ll tell you about everything gradually.

Until a certain period in my life, I honestly didn’t think about planning things. My memory could store all my daily responsibilities. It was enough for me to know the weekday so I could recall what else was scheduled for a particular time. But my mind palace went to ruin when I entered the university because I immediately began to participate in various internships and case championships. And with each course, the load and responsibility increased. My most hectic period was in my senior year when I had a job, an internship, two case championships, and a few freelance projects. Also, qigong, yoga, dancing, and a gym. After university, the workload increased several times more:

I started working at RUSAL, L’Oreal, Global Point, and Jonacor Marine on telecommunications, strategy, and crisis. At the same time I took the position of head of business development at a Service telecommunication company, after some period I became the Owner of PREMIER, and of course each time the load increased and the tasks became more and more polysyllabic. But I didn’t want to dwell on my achievements, so I began to develop my projects: RED foundation, Galaktika, The Cosmos Center, Human Cosmos App, Evolwe, and Co-Founder in ENERGY Group.

Planning experience

When I realized that my memory had limitations and I was tired of blushing over forgotten promises, I began to plan things. I thought that it would be enough for me to keep a notebook. So naive. Yes, it helped me keep a to-do list, but the main obstacle was that I couldn’t always have a notepad at hand. Sometimes it just didn’t fit in the bag, for example. Or I forgot my pen. Perhaps I should’ve written down “pick up a pen” reminders in the notepad.

Then I realized that I take my phone with me everywhere.

As you may have already guessed, I decided to start organizing my schedule on my phone. Initially, I just used notes and phone reminders. I also tried various special apps such as Todoist, TickTick, Due, Microsoft To Do, and many, many others (I feel like I almost tried everything). But honestly, I didn’t like a single application in terms of interface. Moreover, they all annoyed me.

Firstly, I couldn’t quickly look at all the upcoming things for the week. In the same traditional notebook, it is easier to turn pages. So, it was rather complicated for me to use the navigation, limited to the smartphone screen.

Secondly, keeping a to-do list in such applications took me much more time. I wanted everything to be beautifully structured, to be able to tick boxes, track progress, and so on. And sometimes you need to click on different options two or three times, if not more, to use such functions in applications. Compared (again) with a traditional notepad, it’s much faster and easier to simply draw a square or a circle near the task and mark the important thing with color.

And thirdly, I wanted to sync my to-do list on my phone and on… my laptop. For the same purpose of saving time, I wanted to be able to keep it on two devices at once, especially since, as I assumed, it would be easier for me to watch the track on a laptop.

Therefore, at that moment, no matter how strange it may sound, I liked the standard notes that the iOS system offers. The same applications that are designed for the desktop (for example, Trello) were excruciating to use on the phone. Here I don’t even want to dwell on the shortcomings, because I haven’t met a single application that would be well adapted for both desktop and mobile versions. Either one or the other, unfortunately.

However, the notes that I found to be the most versatile (or perhaps I’m just being conservative, I’m not sure) have a few drawbacks.

#1 Drawbacks: I don’t know if there are similar applications on other operating systems that could stream the same recordings (sync) both on the phone and on the desktop. Thus, I can’t be sure that this advice is available for all.

#2 Drawbacks: Notes are still not intended for planning. For my convenience, I had to make a new sheet of notes for each day. As a result, everything was mixed up with the rest of the notes, and even folders didn’t help. And then my patience ran out.

My findings

Of course, having an assistant in my team is very good, someone who could help me keep a to-do list, remind me of everything, mark my progress and, in general, do everything related to time management and planning. But the work of each employee also needs to be checked and even more information in a variety of areas should be kept in mind. So I got the idea to make my assistant!

An assistant who can be free and available both on the desktop and on the phone and who can plan things, keep track of them, and remind me of the most important ones. An assistant (whom I named Nova) helped me to no longer embarrass myself due to my forgetfulness and inattention. While developing this unique product, I will share with you all the insights and difficulties that arise in my path and the path of my team! Follow the news!

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What do you think of my approach to dealing with multiple tasks? Have you got any other tips or methods of coping with multitasking? Feel free to share your experience in the comments down below!

All the best, Aliya!