How I stay (somewhat) organized
Right now this is just a draft outline, ideally I will circle back on this some time this year to fill in some more details.
- Tools
- Notebook
- Right now this is actually just half-letter-page (5.5 inches × 8.5 inches) sheets on a similarly sized clipboard + pen.
- Pre-printed time block pages: four columns (for amending schedule) + twenty-two 30min rows.
- Blank pages for logging daily notes, observations, and ideas.
- I use some elements of bullet
journaling for this:
- I love the bullet syntax, so I use that often (and a homegrown shorthand).
- I migrate tasks from page to page, but don’t follow any of the weekly/monthly/yearly migrations.
- The second or third time a task is migrated, I move this task over to my digital planner app (more below).
- Reflection happens ideally once a day, but more like 2 or 3 times a week.
- I use some elements of bullet
journaling for this:
- Periodically I clear out the clipboard to archive older sheets that I won’t need to update - these get scanned and put into a per-annum PDF document that is synced to my phone and computer.
- Calendar
- I check my digital calendar multiple times a day: I use this to communicate shared calendar events with team members, as well as personal events, deadlines, etc.
- Home-grown todoist clone
- Repo: git://pingo.thermokar.st/planner
- Live: https://planner.thermokar.st (access restricted)
- Structure
- This planner is modeled after GTD practices and features an inbox, and the ability to categorize tasks into one or more “plans” (plans can be a project, a specific day/week/events todo list, an issue tracker, etc).
- Notebook
- Routines
- Daily
- I triage notifications first thing in the morning (no more than 30
mins).
- Note, I might move away from this: I would prefer to handle that kind of stuff midday if possible.
- Timeblock the day’s schedule (see: Focus requires
a rigorous contract), incorporating prior engagements, any urgent ad
hoc tasks, and the week’s goals (more below).
- If I fall behind or something unexpected comes up, I update the timeblock schedule when I get a chance.
- I triage notifications first thing in the morning (no more than 30
mins).
- Weekly
- Before each week starts I try to identify a few high-level goals for the week, and figure out (broadly) how they might fit into my schedule, but I don’t worry too much about specific scheduling at this point, just something like “Wednesday would be a good day to carve out time for this…”
- Long-term
- My calendar handles big things like major work milestones, deadlines, appointments, meetings, etc.
- Tasks go into my planner app, I review these 3-5 times a month on average to see how they might fit into what is coming up next, etc. Really long-term tasks get filed into an @someday plan.
- Daily
Tags: practices, productivity
Created: 2021-01-29T12:00:00Z · Updated: 2023-01-02T07:30:08Z