Joe's Notes

using things 3

Sep 20, 20244 min read

Curtis McHale

  • Uses tags for thisweek, nextweek, and thismonth
  • He’ll then go through those and schedule “thisweek” tasks over the week, Mon-Fri
  • He makes sure that all tasks in his system has one of the timebased-tags

Tiago Forte

  • Inbox
    • Captures all actions here, obv
    • Will assign a priority tag, either “high” for has to be done this week or “medium” for things that can be done after this week
      • Able to assign a shortcut to a tag, then press Control + shortcut to assign it
    • Then he moves it to the repective project or area
  • Selecting this for Today/This Week
    • Anytime → filter for tag Priority/HIgh
  • Today
    • Uses Today view as “this week”
    • He doesn’t separate out his today view by project or area, but rather with custom headings

One thing I don’t understand, is that Tiago uses both the Today view and High priority to denote what he wants to do this week, so why does he only add some things into his Today view?

Christoper Lawley

  • Uses research & tracking area to track things like books to read, video games to play, movies to watch
    • These are each projects, then have headings to further define, ex. PS5 vs Switch Games
  • Heavy use of shortcuts
  • Also tracks the tasks that other people have to do as a waiting o, if your neck is on the line too.

Fu Master Productivity

Overview

  • Use Inbox to capture distractions
  • Establish morning routine
  • Do daily. review to create Today list
  • Do weekly review to review Anytime List
  • Areas, Projects, and Next Actions Only
  • Keep Today view tight with must dos - any time is for bonus todos, someday for everything that you’re not going to tackle this week
  • Don’t schedule todos, use due dates
  • Use tags sparingly, use KB shortcuts
  • Use a notes app for notes, projects & journaling
  1. Inbox
    1. Capture all thoughts, ideas, links, and distractions
  2. Morning Routine
    1. Do the same exact thing everyday, including the Daily Things Reviews
    2. On Mondays, do a Weekly Review
    3. Habits, ex. writing, working out
  3. Shut Down ritual
    1. Area called shift gears to do some journaling and meditation to reflect on the work day
  4. Daily review
    1. Goal: concise list of must dos for the day
      1. Check calendar
        1. what’s scheduled?
        2. whats necessary for today’s appointments/
      2. Clear email inbox
        1. review unread
        2. mail to things for things needing action
      3. Clear things 3 inbox
        1. Update name to be actionable
        2. Tag effort level
        3. Schedule when it needs to be done
        4. Move to area or project
        5. Add other notes, tags, checklist items, deadline, etc
      4. Review today list
        1. Make sure everything thats on there should be
        2. prune it to the must do’s
      5. Review Anytime list
        1. for anything else needing to be complete today
  5. Weekly Review
    1. Comb thorugh everything, each area, project, and someday
      1. Add, clean, remove projects and todos
    2. celebrate
    3. pick a work and personal goal
    4. anything you don’t plan to focus on this week goes into the someday list
  6. Areas, projects, todos, and calendar
    1. Areas - important areas of focus, initiatives
    2. Projects - mini goals, defined start and end date
      • Always have a next action
    3. Todos
      1. Always actionable
      2. Only next actions
        1. You don’t want to list out a bunch of stuff, mapping out the whole project, just ot have to adjust and delete it later.
        2. Option:
          • Use the proejct notes section
          • Use the someday list
          • Use a 3rd part notes app
    4. Calendar
      1. When you’re going to do it
  7. Today & Anytime lists
    1. Daily & weekly reviews trim your today list to must dos, leaving your anytime list to be the next place to work from, as a want to do
  8. Scheduling todos
    1. a scheduled todo is something you can’t work on until a specific date
    2. an anytime todo can be done at any time
    3. your reviews should take care of everyhing that you’d otherwise schedule
    4. instead, use deadlines
      1. they’re added to Today when due, but still appear in anytime
  9. Tags & KB Shortcuts
    1. Focus tag at the area level
      • work vs home vs personal
    2. Action tag
      1. assigned per task - uses quick, focus, journal, waiting, errand, call
  10. Use a notes aoo
    1. Save direct links to projects and areas
    2. mirror tagging system
  11. Productivity is the forcefield
    1. Inbox sits at the top of the system, purpose is the foundation that keeps it upright
    2. “Why” buckets
      1. Journal about your why
      2. Add them as areas
      3. break them down into projects and todos for yourself

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