How I organize my UX Design Workflow with Todoist
A primer into the tools & strategies I use to prioritize and execute upon many UX projects
Many designers like to use note taking apps, organizational apps, whiteboard apps, and to-do lists to organize and get their work done.
I’ve used several products that accomplish many of these tasks, including Miro, Notion, Leankit, Jira, Trello, etcetera.
After quite some time exploring and poking these applications, it became clear that I needed to use only one or two to maximize my time and energy. Using too many systems can result in significant mental overhead.
You need to ask yourself: what are my general needs as a designer to do and document?
Here are mine:
-> I need a way to capture team meeting action items and important meeting documentation
-> I need a way to transform meeting action items and team features into tasks
-> I need a way to capture my tasks and have a way to hold myself accountable for doing those tasks
-> I need a way to capture and plan user research and feedback
-> I need a way to capture important documentation on how to use, test, or work certain things in my job (for example, when I am testing a functionality, how to change something in the inspector console)
There are, of course, many other job responsibilities to do, such as the actual designing. But I’d like to focus on these specific needs first, as they can seem like the most overwhelming “administrative” parts of the job.
Based on these required functionalities, I personally use Todoist and the Notes app on my computer. (Google Keep works just as well).
Why Todoist? Why not keep everything on your team’s Jira/Azure/{insert major team prioritization management software} board?
I like a single activity/scope based application to help me get things done with as little interference or friction as possible; Todoist is the essence of simplicity.
And, *gasp* if there is not an integration, sometimes I do have to double my workload, as in adding tasks to both the team software and my personal Todoist.
For me, that’s totally worth it though — to have a simplified and more fleshed-out version of everything I need to do, from the big epics to the minutiae and day-to-day.
The major reasons I use Todoist over any other software are by far the simplicity of work set-up, and the efficacy of using a date-based, natural language processor to create due dates eliminates the issue of having to create your own workload or remind yourself.
Being able to filter everything due on each day to show up on your “Due Today” dashboard is crucial.
You’ll notice that even though I love Trello/kanban style boards for a general overview of major team projects, Todoist is still the ultimate way I actually get shit done, because it’s not overwhelming to look at like the Kanban cards can be.
I find the problem with more configuration based task systems, like Notion or Miro, is that you’re constantly setting up systems and dealing with the consequences of a continually evolving system that must be changed depending on date or requirement. The ease of Todoist comes from how easy it is to literally just add a task, and set a date that goes with that task. The tasks appear on your schedule organized by the date they arrive. There is no bullshit, having to set color codes or labels. There is only the task and the due date.
You just set your parameters. Task, date, priority. Such as:
[Write requirements for {Feature #781} tomorrow, priority 2]
It’s particularly important to create tiny and/or time-blocked tasks with Todoist, so that the tasks can be checked off and not continuously put off. (Yes, I am guilty of this also).
How to deal with tasks from meetings & long meeting notes
During meetings, a big issue I have had in the past is creating follow ups and knowing what to do with them. I used to get stuck in the mindset that I have to take ~perfect notes~ and keep them organized and filed away somewhere — which is all nonsense. Think about all the notes you never return back to or re-review. Notes are useless if you never read them again. You need a system for finding what you need and getting exactly what data you’ll require from that project.
So, without further ado, here’s my strategy.
Let’s say you are in a meeting. There may be a lot of important data being thrown around. The most important concept is to understand what are your follow ups and action items.
Take note of what needs to happen next in bullet form in whatever notes app you use, being as crisp and simple as possible. At the end of the task, write the day it will be do (either tomorrow, today, date name, etcetera). Separate the tasks by line breaks.
Copy and paste all your tasks into Todoist — it will auto-create multiple tasks and keep the due dates.
If there is any pertinent or relevant information you need within these tasks, add them to your Todoist task description. Add links to any Figma/Miro files you need that would be helpful.
If your team has its own project management software, make a reference card to go on this board as well so that the team can be aware of your tasks.
How to prioritize and work on humongous overwhelming projects
Simplicity is key. Making it so that you don’t even have to think about it is crucial. If I have several tasks floating around, I will create several of the same tasks, and set them as recurring daily so that I can easily check off small parts of them, while being reminded of the full project.
For example, I was recently working on a huge project to set up a full production Figma file of all the emails my product sends out to customers.
The work at first felt quite overwhelming, to have to document and set up each email in the flow that it would make sense to someone seeing them for the first time.
In order to curb the overwhelming-ness, I set a recurring task for every day to “Add 3 emails to the production Figma flow”. This takes the stress off of thinking you have to do your whole project at once. I also found that even just saying I needed to add 3, I ended up adding more to the files, and the tasks took me much less time than I expected.
My favorite method take and organize notes
Todoist is an awesome way to keep track of those tasks on a daily basis, but what if we need more of a reference guide to materials? This is where having a notes app comes in handy.
I personally have tried and switched from many products, Obsidian, Notion, Miro, etcetera, and found myself coming back to the plain old notes app on my computer. Of course, if you like one of the others, use it! I’ve just found that for myself, it’s best to take all the friction out of any kind information intake, and just let the information itself shine.
One of the things I used to be quite obsessive over was my file organization in Notion — what folders to add, where to place things, naming conventions, etcetera. I’ve changed my strategy to simply using better keywords in my notes, and focusing on creating a more robust search strategy.
This may seem a little like, ‘woah, how on earth do you find anything?!” but it all comes back to you gotta only take notes of what actually matters. Many people take notes that they don’t need, and it just creates useless bloat in their workflow.
For example, meeting notes need to be translated into tasks in Todoist (or added to description) right away; then usually can be deleted.
If the team needs to share information, keep the notes or requirements in your team project management system, in one of the cards or whatever feature/epic that’s most relevant.
Write your documentation so that it’s easily searchable
Documentation of process, tools, or important things you’ll need to reference later, on the other hand, should be kept easily on file for use. The key here is to keep them as searchable as possible. What that means is to use words that you will be able to remember when you’re trying to think of something again and keep those words directly in your notes.
I keep all of those in my notes, split up by day or certain meetings that I needed to keep in mind. If I don’t think I’ll be able to remember how to search for the documentation, I’ll add additional words or tags to help me find what I need.
Trust me, if you had told me years ago how I would be searching for information now, instead of color-assigned and named folders, I would have thought you were joking. But you have to trust yourself and your system. It can take time getting used to, but it’s significantly less organizational overhead if you can make it work. Try it out, and let me know how it works for you.