For the longest time, during the pre-smartphone days, before there were all manner of task-tracking and note-taking apps, I carried around an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper in my pocket along with a little pencil (stolen, err borrowed, from my local library).
My catch-all is digital on Wunderlist (now Notes, RIP) filed under “someday/maybe”. The “today” I create in the morning, pen on paper, before the endless meetings start. 50% complete by evening is a good day.
I have been writing my top four daily actions (2 professional, 2 personal) by hand for the last 5 years. I carry a notebook to support this, plus gratitude reflection and general brain dump and other notes. This complements digital tools but operates as my focusing and prioritization exercise.
There's no perfect notebook - I've tried them all. I did the longest run with the Evernote/Moleskin medium sized notebook - it's soft cover and thin so doesn't take much weight or space, can even fit in a large pocket. I experimented with snapping photos of my notes since Evernote has a hand-writing interpretation capability that makes it searchable, but didn't use it enough to justify the chore of photographing my notes daily. I experimented with some of the "productivity journals" (Full Focus journal, Self journal) and while I appreciate some pages at the beginning of the notebook for annual, quarterly, and monthly planning, there's way too much empty space that goes to waste on the typical daily pages. Right now I'm using a Box-branded notebook.
I also spent about a year with a folded up single sheet of paper I could carry it my pocket. I created a printable template so 1/8 of the page accounted for the week's objectives, and the rest of them were daily canvasses. There was light formatting to be able to check off daily habits I was tracking.
I find value in the side-by-side personal and professional daily "top priorities" exercise first thing in the AM because it helps me feel like I've got the full balance of my life accounted for. If it's critical that I exercise or get my wife a birthday present, I want that to be just as prominent in my mental accounting of the day's time and attention as preparing an important presentation or analyzing a report. That said, I definitely need the detailed project planning for work in digital tools, and I do run into issues when I have sprawling to do lists spread across multiple environments.
Finally, my favorite to do list app is Nozbe. I've paid for the Pro subscription for years (get the discounted annual rate they offer on Black Friday's, I think it's $8/month). I've had seasons of being highly disciplined in tracking everything in there, as well as time where it is more of a backlog of stuff I should do but if it's not my primary reference it's not terrible if action is delayed.
My catch-all is digital on Wunderlist (now Notes, RIP) filed under “someday/maybe”. The “today” I create in the morning, pen on paper, before the endless meetings start. 50% complete by evening is a good day.
Perhaps... and this is a long shot... you got more done back then because you didn’t have kids?
No, if anything kids == focus
I have been writing my top four daily actions (2 professional, 2 personal) by hand for the last 5 years. I carry a notebook to support this, plus gratitude reflection and general brain dump and other notes. This complements digital tools but operates as my focusing and prioritization exercise.
nice - what type of notebook do you use? also, blending personal / professional works for you? (I prefer to separate mentally and physically)
There's no perfect notebook - I've tried them all. I did the longest run with the Evernote/Moleskin medium sized notebook - it's soft cover and thin so doesn't take much weight or space, can even fit in a large pocket. I experimented with snapping photos of my notes since Evernote has a hand-writing interpretation capability that makes it searchable, but didn't use it enough to justify the chore of photographing my notes daily. I experimented with some of the "productivity journals" (Full Focus journal, Self journal) and while I appreciate some pages at the beginning of the notebook for annual, quarterly, and monthly planning, there's way too much empty space that goes to waste on the typical daily pages. Right now I'm using a Box-branded notebook.
I also spent about a year with a folded up single sheet of paper I could carry it my pocket. I created a printable template so 1/8 of the page accounted for the week's objectives, and the rest of them were daily canvasses. There was light formatting to be able to check off daily habits I was tracking.
I find value in the side-by-side personal and professional daily "top priorities" exercise first thing in the AM because it helps me feel like I've got the full balance of my life accounted for. If it's critical that I exercise or get my wife a birthday present, I want that to be just as prominent in my mental accounting of the day's time and attention as preparing an important presentation or analyzing a report. That said, I definitely need the detailed project planning for work in digital tools, and I do run into issues when I have sprawling to do lists spread across multiple environments.
Finally, my favorite to do list app is Nozbe. I've paid for the Pro subscription for years (get the discounted annual rate they offer on Black Friday's, I think it's $8/month). I've had seasons of being highly disciplined in tracking everything in there, as well as time where it is more of a backlog of stuff I should do but if it's not my primary reference it's not terrible if action is delayed.
will check out Nozbe...also, FYI wife birthday present >> your exercise routine ;-)