I've had this conversation with multiple people: IT people have ADD.  Or at least if we don't, we sure display the key characteristic.  I don't know if the industry draws this kind of people, or if we become ADD by nature of the work. After all, today alone I've had to deal simultaneously with 2 different timesheets, 2 status reports, a datawarehouse code review, index review, 2 production issues, and a developer request. Plus my own morning meeting, emails from all across the company, texts to my hubby and a friend, writing down article and blog ideas (I'm actually writing this as a brain dump during a troubleshooting session), and keeping up with the database Twitter scene.

I tweeted this today: "Finally found a decent system for remembering what I was doing yest/last week; record daily self updates, w/notes like "see current1.sql"."  And was almost immediately asked for my "system".  I replied, in Tweetspeak, that I keep I keep a time log, to do list, and list of Done items in a Word document.  I keep one Word document per day (today's is named 20090921_M.docx).   EVERY time someone asks for something, I change direction, or I complete something (even if it's firing off an important email), I'll put it in the time log or done. Today's looks like this so far:

Time Summary:

• 8:15 arrive, email
• Looked @ missing indexes email
• 9:30 meeting, status updates...
• 10:00 ATN - friggin release notes document.....
• 10:30 BL issue - see if you can recreate locally

And done says:

1. Statuses and timesheets.
2. Altered [GetProcDetails] procedure at Paul's request; use params ToStation and FromStation instead of Station. More IF/THENs, as you can either have parameter or (tostation and/or from station). Documented there. It's in dev now.
3. Trying to nail down the damn duplicate local config, eating up my whole day.

Every Friday (or the following Monday, if I'm crunched), I copy the time and done lists into a summary page, and edit it down for public consumption.  I also keep Outlook reminders for meetings and long term (or important) due dates.

I've tried keeping up with things through Outlook tasks, OneNote, all that jazz...for some reason, MS Word just feels like home to me.

Everything I've ever read about keeping organized eventually boils down to, you have to have a system that works for you. One friend has a blank notebook, and she writes in dates (like a dayrunner) and puts everything in there.  One manager here seems to keep almost all her thoughts on post-it notes.

I even have a different system for personal stuff (phone and Outlook calendars) than for work, because I don't sit down at my computer at home every day and open up Word.

So how about you? Do you have a decent system for keeping your ADD under control?