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Hi HN, I’ve been struggling with productivity tools for years. Most of them help me collect more tasks, but very few help me figure out which tasks actually matter. I kept finding myself busy all day, yet not making real progress. I borrowed a concept from engineering: Signal vs. Noise.
• Signal tasks: high-impact, goal-driven work.
• Noise tasks: necessary, but low-leverage (emails, reports, admin). So I built SigNull, a minimal to-do app that enforces this distinction:
• New tasks go into an Inbox, where I classify them as Signal or Noise.
• Each morning it surfaces a Top-3 Signal list to focus on first.
• It gives me a Noise Budget (e.g., 45 minutes/day). Once that’s used, I have to either Defer the task or Justify why it’s worth extra time.
• At the end of the day, it shows my Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) so I can see if I spent my time on what really mattered. It’s web-based, simple, and still pretty early. I’m looking for feedback:
• Does the Signal/Noise distinction resonate with you?
• Is the Noise Budget too rigid, or a useful forcing function?
• Where might this approach fall apart in real-world workflows? You can try it here: signull.app Thanks! |