Here’s a simple life hack for task management

Here’s a simple life hack I use almost daily that helps me guide my future self.

When I step away from the computer, or I change tasks, or I get pulled into a meeting, and I haven’t completed what I’m currently working on, I leave a note in my todo list for myself that starts with 𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 𝐎𝐅𝐅:

The examples are often simple. For example:

• “LEFT OFF: Need to figure out which Anthropic library supports the new tools feature.”, or
• “LEFT OFF: Start with a clean project to troubleshoot that blocking issue.”, or
• “LEFT OFF: Ready to start implementing the new schema”

These aren’t for my general to-do actions—that list is obviously larger than a single bullet point. Rather, they are to offload what was on my mind at the moment I stepped away from that task.

This simple action does two significant things for me:

1. It offloads that action from my mind so that I can focus on other things without a nagging feeling of uncompleted work.
2. It makes it much easier to start again because it gives me the first step to get back into the zone and pick up where I left off.

This is useful when I need to walk away from a partially finished task, and it’s also useful even if I successfully complete a task because I can leave myself a note on which task to start next. My mind is already engaged when I step away from a task, so that hint to my future self makes picking back up again so much easier.