Technology can obviously be leveraged to do great things. It’s basically what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years: developing online communities for folks to connect (healthMpowerment, Bull City Beer Runners); empowering public health practitioners and citizens to collect data on their local tobacco retailers in order to pass policies that make their communities healthier (Counter Tools); and connecting nontraditional students to academic support that can help them succeed in school and beyond (Upswing).
And of course, leveraging technology to make our day to day lives a little easier— from to-do lists and automations to reminders—is also excellent. But sometimes, it’s overkill; and a simpler solution is better.
Case in point: At Upswing, the staff takes turns covering our help desk over the weekends. We’re required to check in Saturday morning and evening and then do it again on Sunday. I had a Weekend Support shift last weekend.
Weekend Support isn’t hard. What is hard is remembering to do it, especially if, like me, you tend to unplug on the weekends. It’s common for me not to open my laptop at all, and I tend to walk away from my phone (which is likely on silent) for hours at a time. So setting calendar reminders and alarms just doesn’t work for me. What does work for me is creating a very simple note to myself that I display prominently in my home, like on my kitchen island or in front of a vase of flowers (as pictured above—pretty, right?).
It might seem silly, but this simple note with checkboxes is truly the best solution for me to remember that I have to do something that I don’t normally do. And my Weekend Support shifts come around so infrequently that it doesn’t make sense to spend more time figuring out a more sophisticated system.
So, next time you’re trying to optimize a process, consider whether incorporating technology is actually making it harder. It might be that a simple piece of scrap paper is all you need.