Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Tanja Šovanj

Have you ever found yourself lost among all of the things you need to get done in the scope of your web design project? And the problem just got worse because you didn’t even know where to start or what is it that you need to get done next? If this is the case, hear me out on this, I have a suggestion!

It’s impossible to keep all information about a project in our head, but we keep doing it because we either don’t know how to change that or think that simply writing everything down won’t help us. Our design projects demand maximum concentration: during every phase we need to manage various different, sometimes opposing requests; get things done quickly and professionally; pay attention to every detail while maintaining a big picture of the project in our mind at all times. If we neglect some important project requirements because we forgot about them, we’ll come up pretty much as incompetent idiots.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of writing down every single project requirement and goal, including the smallest ones. When starting a new web design project, try your best to come up with a detailed plan of your actions as soon as possible. Then write down everything, and I mean everything related to the project: long-term plans, short-term plans, your ideas, thoughts, doubts, questions to ask the client, suggestions, links to the websites that got you inspired, and everything else you can think of. Be as detailed as you can, as this will help you clarify your actions and minimize productivity gaps.

The tool that I find immensely helpful for making notes and planning is Trello. It will help you organize and arrange all of your tasks in a systematic way. You can write comments, assign different labels to different kinds of tasks, track the completion of your plans and much more. While writing down my notes I also break down long-term and bigger plans into smaller chunks. This helps me get a clearer picture of what I’ll have to do and how much time will I have to allocate to every task.

Taking notes can really boost both your productivity and creativity. The reason is simple. A relieved mind can more easily get in “the zone” and focus on the task ahead. It doesn’t have to manage all those thoughts, questions and ideas, trying to not forget them, classify them, decide when to take action on them. That’s because they’ve all been written down and classified.

Turning note taking into a habit will improve your overall time management, your way of thinking, planning, and I may say, living. Changing our habits for better can be life changing, because of a positive chain reaction that occurs during that process. Maybe this is the one that will make your productivity wheels turning! And there’s really nothing easier than making notes. You can make notes in your notebook on the old school way, or use some of the great online tools such as Evernote, Trello or Workflowy. And you can start now, just by writing down that you’ll start taking notes from now on. Happy working! 🙂

Thank you for taking the time to read my article! If you liked it and found some value in it, please click the ❤ to share it with others, start following me on Medium or do both. I would really like to hear from you and learn how you approach this topic, so feel welcome to leave your comment. I’m looking forward to reading it. 🙂

Tanja Šovanj is a former literature graduate who made a career shift into the world of web design. Now I pursue my new career and enjoy sharing my experiences with others who are going through a similar transition. You can see how I work at: http://ift.tt/2oVEei8

Note-taking for a more productive design life was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Note-taking for a more productive design life

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