Pt 1: Private Productiveness Stack

Over the previous few months I’ve had a number of associates ask me about my productiveness stack in numerous shapes and varieties. Somewhat than repeating it with half the articulation I might prefer to, I believed why not create an article about it!

I like to maximise probably the most I can out of my restricted lifetime. Whereas most individuals assume you’ll be able to’t have all of it, I consider you’ll be able to — offered you propose successfully and guarantee appropriate sequencing of operations for effectivity.

As well as, man can also be a primitive being with out his instruments. Most individuals make use of near 0 software program for the non-public growth stack. That is nearly as good as being a cave-man, within the info age. In case you really feel just like the issues beneath are “too many instruments” then you’ll be restricted in your output.

The rationale why I selected these methods was primarily based on the next truths:

1. Our mind has weak storage and powerful compute talents. When we’ve got an excessive amount of to recollect, we really feel careworn.

2. As we undergo life and expertise issues, we’re usually restricted in our potential to successfully motion our ideas to the Subsequent Greatest Smallest Motion (tm lol).

3. Software program that may precisely map our psychological state means we will study ourselves from a singular perspective.

As soon as I recognized these truths from my lived expertise, the following half was experimenting to search out what labored. The beneath is probably the most MVP model of my private productiveness stack that I believe will get somebody in form. There are lots of extra ranges to this that I intentionally don’t present to keep away from overwhelming you.

To resolve these issues I realised there have been just a few ideas that had been essential to me to respect.

1. Dwell by the system like your life is determined by it: if you cannot absolutely belief your system then it will not absolutely be capable to help you.

2. Implement the minimal quantity of construction attainable: do not create pointless busy work for your self and optimise for issues which can be versatile to accomodate to your non-linear mind.

3. Bake in freedom to comply with what your coronary heart appears like doing: I hate feeling like I am a slave to my methods. These instruments are right here to help me however I select what I really feel like doing and when. Individuals who timebox their total days through a calendar sound like NPCs (or they’re mendacity)

Okay now that you have understood the context and why that is all necessary. Let’s get into the precise substance of it.

Most individuals use Apple Notes to put in writing down issues that they should bear in mind or come throughout. All of them declare to defend that their system works. Once I ask them in the event that they’ve actioned all of the issues they’ve written in it they usually do not even know what they had been meant to do a month in the past. Utilizing Apple Notes is a rookie mistake and do not fall for the lure of One Huge Notice. I am going to let you know why it would not work:

1. Your ideas will not be in a modular type since you maintain including many atomic ideas to the identical notice so a single notice has many sub-thoughts encapsulated in it that makes it arduous to interrupt down.

2. In an effort to motion every thought, it’s important to manually copy paste textual content or open another app to manually copy info over from Apple Notes to your vacation spot supply.

Enter in Drafts: the optimum method to course of your ideas. The way in which I give it some thought is: think about your mind as a robust machine that powers your organic existence for survival and copy. In an effort to optimise this machine we should be ready instrument it successfully. Now till we get thought studying EEG sensors that monitor every part we expect, your greatest wager is manually writing something that is vital down. When the thought comes you need to guarantee:

1. You’ll be able to have the shortest attainable time to enter the thought into some digital system

2. Write the least attainable down to make sure you will get again to the precise second/proceed your stream of consciousness

3. Apply minimal power to have the ability to course of that thought into the Subsequent Greatest Smallest Motion.

What is the cope with this Subsequent Greatest Smallest Motion factor Kerman?. Nice query, let me clarify. Primarily every thought has a supply (your mind) and a vacation spot to use motion. It is form of like f(x) -> y, the place x is your thought and the operate f(x) is what occurs in-between to get to y. What occurs in between to rework x to y may be very advanced or drawn our course of. To make this much less summary let’s use just a few instance ideas:

• You name a buddy and resolve to get lunch and decide to a sure time however want to determine the place. You are on the run so you do not need to create a full calendar entry both. You write down “lunch bob tue 12pm”.

• A buyer you are working with requests a function that you simply assume can be cool to debate however you need to present extra context earlier than sharing it to the group. “Secondary desk sorting” you write as a reminder to your self.

• Sooner or later you are strolling within the streets and see somebody play the violin and it reminds you of your lengthy misplaced dream to play an instrument, however you are still undecided which one and have to see the way it stacks along with your different objectives and time commitments. You enter “be taught violin or some instrument”

• You are going for a stroll after which consider the very best thought for a weblog put up so that you seize “considering of productiveness like software program dev stack content material”.

All of those may very well be easy todos however you are going to begin having a listing that appears like:

• “lunch bob tue 12pm”

• “secondary desk sorting”

• “be taught violin or some instrument”

• “considering of productiveness like software program dev stack content material”

Now you are sitting Monday morning at your desk taking a look at your todo record attempting to determine what you want to and when and also you’re totally confused given the sparse particulars, a number of hidden steps baked into every job and lack of prioritisation/ordering. That is the demise of ideas and actionability. Not all ideas are todos and a few ideas require enrichment earlier than being created.

So what we’ve got now is a matter the place every part is captured in Drafts (hopefully) however we have to be certain that these ideas can attain a state of including worth to our life. We’ll take a fast pause from Drafts and now speak concerning the vacation spot sources that our ideas can transfer to and finally speak about how Drafts helps join the dots.

Some folks use their calendars to todo lists. I believe that is the incorrect use of a device. A calendar ought to ONLY be used to let you know the place you want to be and when. Something that’s in your calendar is legislation and marks your commitments and power of phrase. That is an instance of a system you need to implement the least quantity of construction in. Do not put blocks for exercising, consuming, random todo objects and so on. You need to have the least dedicated attainable calendar to maximise the stuff you really need to do or really feel like doing in every second.

It is necessary that you simply respect this technique as a result of with out time every part cancels to 0. An overloaded calendar would not provide the alternative to really feel like you will have time/area to assume. An inaccurate calendar is a landmine of damaged guarantees ready to occur. Your calendar is your legislation and must be the truest state of actuality. For instance, I will not add going to the health club in my calendar, however I’ll add my private coaching health club session. I will not add time to eat, however I’ll add lunch with a buddy. There’s nearly nothing on the calendar that does not pertain to another person. It’s a mark of your exterior commitments, not inside ones.

Notion Calendar is a superb selection given multi-timezone help and the native integration with Notion, which I cowl beneath.

I believe majority of my readers use or are accustomed to Notion. Nonetheless when you’re not then you want to be ASAP. Notion is a very distinctive piece of software program that allows you to symbolize info in a extremely versatile and linked means. For instance, you’ll be able to create a database referred to as “Objectives” that then has a property that may hyperlink to objects in one other database (Milestones). I will not spent an excessive amount of time going into why Notion is exclusive or methods to use it, that is unbiased analysis you want to do. Nonetheless the best way that I exploit Notion is to create digital representations of my life for issues corresponding to:

• Objectives: what do I need to obtain presently

• Milestones: what are the quantified objects to mark success in my objectives

• Health objectives: numeric measurements expressed as a proportion of my physique composition

• Bucket record: what are all of the issues I need to do earlier than dying and what standing of dedication are they at

As you’ll be able to see they’re wealthy info buildings that may be intertwined with one another.

I’ve tried nearly each todo record beneath the solar and there is one motive why Todoist is a lower above: the programmatic energy it has internally and externally. I am going to clarify extra about it beneath however I can nearly assure there will not be a greater device that Todoist in relation to a private productiveness stack, beginning with API help. That is necessary when coping with drafts.

Now let’s speak about methods to use a todo record. The most important mistake that individuals make with todo lists is that they assign due dates to most/all duties that finally get missed then make them really feel responsible and promote damaging self speak of being lazy. This is my key ideas for utilizing a todo record:

1. Nothing ought to have a due date to it until one thing unhealthy occurs by not doing it on that date. Examples embody: monetary penalties, misplaced alternatives and important commitments. The variety of issues with due dates must be minimal.

2. Duties are merely ordered with 3 easy priorities. Crimson means “do ASAP each time you will have free time”. Orange is extra of “you want to do that however you’ll be able to take a little bit of time”. Blue is “yeah do it everytime you’re bored or do not need to do an orange/pink”. This straightforward system retains prioritisation straightforward.

3. Every todo merchandise must be completely clear what the following step is and require 0 considering. If you cannot do it in a single step then it is a unhealthy one.

4. Create a venture referred to as “at some point” the place you dump all of the stuff you’d prefer to finally do.

Now, when you will have free time you merely: examine what are the completely important issues you want to do which can be due immediately. Then, if in case you have free time begin going via your visitors gentle of reds, oranges, blues.

Okay so now that we have form of explored the most important vacation spot sources for ideas (there’s many extra however these are simply key ones I believe everybody ought to have), we will now come again to Drafts. One factor that’s particular about all of the software program on this weblog put up is that they’ve robust APIs that make interconnection between them very seamless. So bear in mind how we had all these particular person ideas in Drafts:

• “lunch bob tue 12pm”

• “secondary desk sorting”

• “be taught violin or some instrument”

• “considering of productiveness like software program dev stack content material”

We are able to now, contained in the Drafts app, apply programmatic actions to every of our modular ideas. So going via the record:

• “lunch bob tue 12pm”: Apply Todoist motion -> Triggers modal in Drafts with fields for title and precedence. You enter “Discover place for lunch with Bob subsequent Tue @ 12pm” and orange precedence as a result of you understand you may most likely get round to it quickly -> Enriched todo merchandise is now in Todoist with out leaving Drafts. You additionally shortly add in your calendar “[TBD] Lunch with Bob” so you do not double guide.

• “secondary desk sorting”: This requires you to first do a little analysis then current to the group -> You create a web page in Notion including your key ideas in a extra fleshed out means -> Create an orange Todoist merchandise that talks about ending off the doc after which sharing with the group, you embody the hyperlink to the newly created Notion doc within the description to provide your self a pleasant place to choose off subsequent time.

• “be taught violin or some instrument”: Given this can be a objective of yours, you merely go to Notion after which add it as “Not Began” and “Analysis an instrument to be taught, ideally violin”. You may automate this by creation a Notion Objectives motion which might routinely add it to Notion from Drafts!

• “considering of productiveness like software program dev stack content material”: Your re-write this thought as: “Private Productiveness Stack (new line) Speak about how one can consider your productiveness as a software program growth stack and the way it all hyperlinks collectively”. This thought can now have the Notion Content material Concept motion utilized which can take the primary line and add that because the title of the Notion DB row and the contents of the web page because the second line of textual content.

As you’ll be able to see with all the above examples, you’ll undergo this train sometimes day by day or two and enrich every thought with the correct amount of data to make it possible for the NBSA to occur. All of your Draft actions may be achieved by present plugins from the group or your individual hand rolled JavaScript powered by ChatGPT! As your motion library grows or will get refined, processing your ideas ought to take much less and fewer time!

Whereas this is usually a new system to get used to and time to actively administration, the consequence means:

1. You seize each thought that’s vital sufficient to alter your life for the higher

2. Every thought will finally discover it is place to be efficient on the planet

3. Your calendar ought to solely replicate your exterior commitments

4. Your todo record tells you what’s important to do immediately and what can be good to do if in case you have extra time

5. You’ll be able to stay every second primarily based in your temper, power and wishes

I have been in a position to considerably enhance the standard of my life with this technique and hope it may do the identical for a lot of extra. It is a very tough template and you’ll have to make investments the time to tweak it to your preferences and workflows however that is the worth of being efficient. Earlier than utilizing the instruments the easiest way to method that is only a piece of pen and paper to map every part out and seeing how your info structure would circulation.

In any case, that is it for this put up! Be part of the Telegram channel if in case you have any questions concerning the system 🙂 With this I hope you are actually empowered to:

• Do fascinating issues and lead a satisfying life you take pleasure in

• Document your ideas as you acquire entropy

• Discover the following greatest motion to progress your ideas with

• Reap the advantages of being to do lots without delay!