I went really deep on this for a while, to the point of looking at lots of the apps mentioned here. I actually find productivity speak interesting because it’s a unique factor of the age we live in. What I found personally was that interest in the system quickly overtook the excitement of doing the work. I looked at everything from apps, self-built wiki’s to notebooks and the works.
But then I started to find that an old method works best. I have a bunch of notebooks that pile up which in essence are journals on various topics, including my work diary (Volume 9 available nowhere now!) This is literally a rolling capture of to-do’s and jumbled thoughts. I also have work related diaries for book notes and other more in-depth topics. I also have one for music learning. I find that my brain retains the information well this way. There’s enough of a system to keep on top of things, but not too much complexity to distract me from that job.
The single thing that pulled this all into one place for me was the idea of going back to a notebook once finished, and creating a table of contents, and rewriting elements I need for future recall. That way I am able to find anything I need. I just have 2-3 A4/A5 notebooks for everything and yeah… That way works best as a general approach to productivity. Hope that’s useful and somehow relevant.
6 Likes