How I organize myself as a tech lead

Hi everybody! Today I want to share how I finally was able to get myself organized as a technical lead working in two teams with different products.

TL;DR

• Define what tasks should be finished daily, weekly and monthly;
• Create templates with basic models, but helpful;
• Daily or weekly work with these templates making changes and adding your actual tasks;
• Work with check-boxes and leave unfinished work unchecked;
• Always start with unfinished work from yesterday (or the day before)
• Don't answer your team's questions right away;
• You're done :)

Complete article

If you still here, I assume you'd like to read more. So, here's a quick background for context.

I'm a shared resource between two Agile teams (with Scrum), handling planning, backlog refinement meetings, and all the usual Scrums ceremonies. Also, I'm the Senior developer for both teams, which means they're constantly asking for help. As you can imagine, managing time and tasks can get pretty complex.

Yes, it's complex. And when dealing with complex problems like this, let's break it down and work with small pieces.

First up, define your deliverables! Take a moment to consider everything your company, your team, and your peers expect you to do. What you need to do daily, and weekly. Make a note of it.

Next, work with templates! Templates can get you set quickly in terms of what and how you need to work. I've found Trello to be a good tool, but Todoist, Notion, and probably others work too.

I like Trello because I can have my template card on top of the list and easily create my cards.

Here's mine daily template:

• Review team River PRs
• Review team Mountains PRs
• Focus at least 30 minutes on team River issue 387
• Focus at least 30 minutes on team Mountains task 297

And weekly:

• Summary tasks report
• Review tasks in the backlog that needs more information
• Get ahead with slides for the sprint review

Remember, the more organized you are, the easier it gets. I prefer doing things at the same time everyday, if possible. Writing your tasks for the day should be your first activity.

Now, work with check-boxes! Check-boxes can visually indicate when something is done and when it's pending. Plus, checking things off gives our brains a great feeling. I like leaving unfinished work unchecked for that day, rather than carrying it over to the next.

Prioritize yesterday's work! Ideally, we should finish yesterday's work first, so it doesn't get forgotten.

Focus time! This is gold. As a technical leader, people will often ask you things, usually for help. But not all questions are super important. Most of them can wait. People can often find an answer themselves because they need to. You can review later. But use this power wisely.

You're done! Finally, you'll have a better organization for your tasks, your daily work, reports, documentations, everything. The more you do, the better you get. Trust me.

Thank your for reading. I'd love to hear your comment on this.

Happy coding.