I am having a nerd moment and want to share a productivity trick from my colleague Matt Cornell, called "Protecting your future self."

Imagine your future self has amnesia and it's your job to write him/her a clear task list with specific actions.

Rather than write a vague instruction which has virtually no meaning to my future self, such as:

"Do color corrections"

Instead I write my future self a specific instruction, such as:

"Do color corrections for museum. Images 45, 47, 79, 93 found on the clients FTP server (see email for login info). Image 45 has too much green and cyan (see reference image from Karen). Image 93 could be a total loss so only do what is needed and then contact client. Time Estimate: 2 hours."

I am especially nice to my future self by including a time estimate for this task. As a result, when my future self returns to the task list later, I will know exactly what to do next, which means work gets done faster and easier.  My future self will be so happy.