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Ask HN: How to Become Detailed Oriented?

2 points by kobiguru ↗ HN
Problem:

I am terrible at noticing details, missing them while writing a report, making spreadsheets, and writing an email. Basically, I will miss some part of the information I am aware of but I just completely forget to add it and after sending it I notice that I have forgotten something.

I have had to very high price for this in the past from losing clients to getting fired from my last job. My present job requires me to pay close attention to detail and I am worried I might lose this job as well.

Solutions I have tried : Use online writing helpers such as Grammarly ( where I wrote this post) Reviewing a few times before sending anything (I can catch about 30-40% of my errors but there is still 60-70% errors) Biggest Pain point:

Formatting excels, messing up variable names while writing code/query.

I am looking for advice that can make my life a little easier.

P.S. Please forgive me if I have inadvertently eaten up some words. I happy to give clarifications.

7 comments

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neom
I have quite severe dyslexia and can very much empathize with everything you wrote above, sounds like me word for word. My advice would be to try not to overthink it, I spent a long time beating myself up about those things and trying to get better at them, but in reality the best I could do was try my best. Otherwise: Slow down (I know it's hard) and just focus on the stuff you're really good at and accept the stuff that you're not (I know it's hard).

I have a line in my email signature that says I'm dyslexic, so excusing my mistakes would be appreciated, and I always tell people I work with that I'm dyslexic so they can have my back and double check stuff for me. My ideas are usually fantastic, better than most people around me, and my execution is usually very strong, but don't expect correct emails from me (pick up the phone), this can lead people to believe I'm not detail oriented, I am, I get the details right, just the communication part can be difficult.

kobiguru
Thank You. I may be dyslexic. I am not sure though. I have never been diagnosed for it.

I am really great at execution. Details notwithstanding, I am usually the best performing member in my team but my teammates or managers end up correcting (commenting / pointing out) my mistakes which increases their work.

I will try your email signature idea. Thank you again.

throwaway4233
As part of your job, do you have to context switch a lot ? Or do you end up working across different parts of the system in the same day ?
kobiguru
I try not context switch. My strategy is to focus on one thing get it done and then move to the next. Sort of like going through a To-Do list. I add rechecking time in all tasks I do. It happens a lot more while texting, slack massages, or quick -short emails than on big project because of repeated checks.
throwaway4233
I asked since I earlier was in a role that involved a lot of context switching as well as responding to people's messages or queries via multiple mediums of communications. Here is what I did when I realized that my productivity was going down due to missing out details or making silly mistakes,

1. Used slack's status to inform people when I am in the middle of a task so to imply that I will reply late. Disabled slack notifications and stopped using the slack app (instead had it as a pinned tab on the browser). I only replied if I am able to give it my 100% attention.

2. Via experimenting came across a fixed number of things I will do in a day based on priority. For any task that comes in either asked my reporting manager for it's priority or noted it down to be completed as part of the next day's tasks. There are always days when you are going to be overwhelmed by the things for you to do and it is okay to talk to your manager to have things taken off your pile.

3. Write down notes as much as possible about events related to work. It might be unstructured at first but try formatting it at the end of the day and slowly the ability to write good notes will kick in. This will also aid in identifying why you might have missed out a detail. It is an overhead to log summarized information down but it could do you good in the long run.

4. Slowly phase out and remove your rechecking time. It provides a safety cushion for your brain to slack off on the first run and even if you are careful, you might miss out on details during rechecking because your brain becomes used to what you have written. It is completely fine to ask for help from colleagues or your manager in case you are not sure.

Hope this helps you.

kobiguru
Yes this is helpful. I do take extensive notes while reading books or listening to podcasts but never thought of doing it as part of work, in terms of documenting my process and make develop some kind of checklist to run before I push changes.
throwaway4233
These used to be my style of writing notes. I usually substituted some of the information here with a link to the ticket I was working on so my points were shorter but you can be as elaborate as time allows you to. For eg:

1. X reached out asking for a financial report. Wants booking data between March'20 and June'20. More information on ticket.

2. Y let me know that I would need to check file `list_orders_service.rb` to understand our order processing logic.

3. X also wants the data to be grouped by city and ordered by most number of orders.

4. Q pinged me to let me know that there has been a new column `order_revised_on` added to the orders table and to include it in the changes I am making for the new orders page. Need to communicate the same to Y via updating the ticket.

5. M pinged me with a new bug I need to fix on priority. Confirmed with him on moving X's financial report generation to tomorrow. Will update on ticket