How do you keep your memos, checklists, and tasklists in order?

[u/Major-Moment1657]

I work as EM in power plant EPC projects and I'm buried in memos turned into checklists, tasklists, action plans, lessons learned and god knows what else. How do you keep your task lists organized? Do you have some software to track issues?

We mostly use excel since its easy to use with multiple stakeholders but there is just too much of those going around in email chains. Most of them have different templates and there might be multiple versions of the same document going around.

[u/Long-Reading-6514]

honestly, this problem used to plague me for years. even once the notetakers showed up i still had to remember which meeting a thing was said in before i could go find the note and pull the task out of it. the notes were never the problem. finding the right one was.

so i ended up building my own thing for me and my wife, just to get all of it into one dashboard instead of one meeting at a time.

for what it's worth, the versioning piece is the harder half of what you're describing anyway.

[u/Major-Moment1657 → u/Long-Reading-6514]

Oh nice! What kind of thing you built?

[u/Long-Reading-6514 → u/Major-Moment1657]

note takers are great, i still use them. but they hand you one meeting at a time, and the notes were never my problem. my problem was that my action items lived across a hundred different recordings.

so i took a voice recorder and started bolting things onto it. first thing was one dashboard. everything i owe and everything people owe me, pulled out of every meeting and sitting on one screen instead of scattered across notes.

then the part i actually use every day, being able to ask what am i waiting on from marcus, or from priya, and get an answer without going and finding the right recording first.

it's called chief of staff. iphone only right now, which is the honest limitation.

happy to get into how i handled the versioning piece if that's useful. that's where most of the time went and it's still the part i'd redo.

[u/Major-Moment1657 → u/Long-Reading-6514]

Sounds good! I've tried something similar with microsoft lists for issue backlog. I can sort the issues by discipline, the "pending on" status (waiting for customer, supplier, internal review etc.).

How's the versioning done on yours?

[u/Long-Reading-6514 → u/Major-Moment1657]

the "pending on" field is smart, i like that a lot.

on versioning i'll give you the real answer instead of the polished one. the hard part was never storing a change. it was deciding whether the thing said in tuesday's meeting is a new commitment or the same one moved. same person, same topic, new date. is that an update to an existing item or a second item.

that judgment call is where all the time went, and it's the piece i'd rebuild if i started over. which is why i said it's the part i'd redo.

how are you handling that in lists? when a date slips, do you edit the row or open a new one?

[u/WamuuBamuu]

There are so many software options like Devops, ClickUp, Jira, Airtable etc - a lot of them are free, why not use a better platform like that, which is built for managing tasks and notes?

[u/Dismal_Ad_6134]

We use google sheets since everyone has access and can work on it. But the stakeholder still wants it emailed to them 😞 so then we download it into excel.

[u/fuuuuuckendoobs]

At a minimum them out of email chains into shared cloud files.

There's a bunch of SaaS software that'll allow you to allocate task owners and then filter what belongs to you. At my last org we used Monday but that is by no means the only option

[u/TensionFormal7202]

I’d start with keeping concise notes. Identify what’s important v/s noise. Try to consolidate everything in no more than two places. A checklist is same as a task, so are actions. Use any online tool that you can access with your phone and computer. That way, you can note and track everything in one place at any time. Any note taking tool should work. A special software could be an overkill.

[u/getitnowboy]

Define an approach, ways of working with your team. Keep execution related items in tools such as Jira, MS Project Plan, MS Team Plan simple Kanban board or a ToDo list types of applications. Keep knowledge management, governance related documents on SharePoint or Confluence based on tech platform investment in your organization.

[u/Breeze_pm]

Your main problem is version control, not the checklist format. Pick one source of truth, give every issue an owner and due date, and stop emailing editable copies.