[From Wrike] Welcome New Orange Belts - June 2021 👋

Very cool!

Dream holiday destination: anywhere and everywhere in Hawaii.

First thing I use in Wrike: dashboards—my personal dashboard, team dashboard, and then my inbox to top it off.

Favorite pastime: puzzles

Dream vacation - Australia

1st thing in Wrike - Workload

Favorite pastime: motorcycling

Oh hi. 

1. Your dream holiday destination: A bunch of naps
2. The first thing you use in Wrike when you start your day (i.e. Inbox, Dashboards..): Clear that inbox, then primary dashboards
3. Your favorite pastime: Napping with my dogs. 

Thanks for sharing @everyone, the first thing I do is to check my inbox and "To Do Today/ This Week" dashboard! Congratulations again on your Orange belt 🎉

John Rakoczy I'm so curious, what's your "workstack" widget?

We started playing with Wrike about 18 months ago, and it was just for the IT department to manage all the work that we do.  Because we touch every other department, we've accumulated over 60 spaces (based on entire department, individual application, user group, etc) to contain tasks that pertain to the space but also allow cross-tagging so a task can be found in any related space.   Assignments can be "adjusted" by anyone as people "grab" work to do.  So it became overwhelming to just track all the hundred things that I'm involved with.   Seriously, it was a mess just trying to figure out what I was working on, to the point of wanting to go back to my spreadsheet ;)

Best Practice for me was to categorize/prioritize work on the principle that I can only do so many things at at time, no matter how long the list is.  Whatever has floated to the top is what I'm working on, and anything else is kind of floating beneath the surface until I get to it.   I basically put "task blinders" on, so I am not distracted or overwhelmed at all the things in Wrike that I'm tagged on.

1. I work from left to right in my stack: 
2. First column is anything tagged as "important" so it never falls off my radar. 
3. Next column is "WIP" and those are the things I am actively completing, no matter which space they are in. 
4. I use the total count of things in the first 2 columns to limit what I'm working on... if a new task comes my way, and I've got less than 20 things between the first 2 columns I'll accept it.  If not, I force myself to either defer the new request due to bandwidth, or adjust the status of something already there so I can make room for the new task. 
5. Then there is my "TODO" list which is also private and normally not shared.  More of a "wish list" for me than a "to do" list.
6. And then the last column in view is "Active, but NOT WIP" which are those things floating beneath the surface. 
7. There are other columns off screen to the right but they aren't things I need to see (such as things "on hold").

Attached a screen shot of what I'm talking about.  If I didn't organize my workload beyond what Wrike already does, I'd be treading water and probably even drowning lol.

Hi! This is fun. 😄 

The first thing I do in Wrike is check my inbox for tags & messages and then my Priority Dashboard for tasks for the day/week. 

Dream destination is Spain right now - really excited for international travel to open back up, hopefully soon.

Favorite Pastime: Knitting and/or baking.

Oh - I like the split out of In Progress vs Not started! 

John Rakoczy thank you for sharing, that is VERY cool and extremely helpful! Definitely something for me to chew on. I'm getting to the point of task overload, that approach could help.

Thanks Ashley Crane.  Having "task overload" isn't fun and ruins your ability to efficiently knock out tasks.  Basically, out of the pile of things you have to do... ask yourself what does it take for me to work on something in the pile as opposed to all the other things in the pile?  That becomes your criteria and make a custom widget that filters off each criteria.   That way, you're working automatically on what you'd have to manually sift through and decide.  Much more efficient and nothing is "forgotten" just waiting for the right conditions to activate.

Thanks for sharing some great insights from your work here John Rakoczy! 

I do exactly the same starting my day Kate Russell, congrats on your Orange belt again 🙌🏼