My Go at the Logan Jordan Thing
Alright, let me tell you about this thing I tried, some folks called it the Logan Jordan method, or maybe it was just associated with someone by that name. Doesn’t really matter who came up with it, point is, I was getting swamped.
You know how it goes. Project gets bigger, notes are everywhere. Sticky notes, digital notebooks, random text files, stuff in the chat history… it was a mess. Trying to find why we made a certain decision six months ago? Good luck. Felt like I was spending more time hunting for info than actually doing stuff. Something had to change.
So, I stumbled across this idea, the Logan Jordan approach, let’s call it that. Super simple, almost stupidly simple. The core idea was radical focus, maybe even brutal simplicity, especially with tracking tasks or project notes. Forget fancy tools for a bit.
Here’s what I actually did, step-by-step:
- First, I picked a smaller, annoying side project. Didn’t want to risk the main gig yet.
- I grabbed a plain old physical notebook. Yeah, paper. And one pen.
- I drew a line down the middle of the first page.
- Left side: This was strictly for what needed doing. One line per task. Super concise. Like “Fix login bug” or “Draft user email”. No essays.
- Right side: This was for blockers or key questions ONLY related to the tasks on the left. Again, short and sweet. “Need API key from Dave” or “Which icon to use?”.
- Crucially, once a task was done, I physically struck it through. A big, satisfying line. Done. Gone.
- Each morning, I’d look at the list, pick the top 1-3 things I could realistically finish, and just focus on those. New tasks got added to the bottom of the list.
- If a task sat there for weeks? It forced me to ask if it was actually important or just wishful thinking. Often, I’d just cross it out if it wasn’t moving.
Did it work? Well…
It felt weirdly primitive at first. Like, are we back in the stone age? My desk looked less “techy” with this notebook sitting there. But honestly? For that specific project, it cut through the noise. It forced me to be brutally honest about what was important right now and what was holding things up.
There wasn’t anywhere to hide complexity. It was just the task, or the blocker. That’s it. No complicated status fields, no endless comment threads. Just the raw reality of the work.
It wasn’t perfect, mind you. Sharing this with others wasn’t easy, it was my notebook. And for bigger teams, forget it. But for getting my own head straight on a tangled project? Yeah, it helped. Forced a kind of clarity that all the fancy software sometimes obscures.
Haven’t used it much lately, things got busy again, fell back into old habits. But I still remember that feeling of control it gave me for a while. Maybe I should dig out that notebook again…
