rikard.me/blog/013.htm                                Fri 15 Mar, 2024


                        My productivity system


Do you ever find yourself liking something so much that you just want
to talk about it without any real prompt to do so?  Well, that's how I
feel about my productivity system currently.

I manage all of my commitments in a personal sized Filofax.  I have
two actually, one for work related stuff which I keep in my office,
and one for private stuff which never leaves my desk at home.  They
are both laid out exactly the same, it's just the areas of focus that
are different.

I've chopped and changed a lot over the years, but the system I have
now is still very similar to the one I had in my very first Filofax.
All changes I've made have been to make it simpler and more
utilitarian.  I won't spend time going over the various changes I've
made, I'll just present my system as it looks like today.

                                * * *



Opening the Filofax this is what we have.  I don't use the pockets for
anything, the only part of the binder that I use (other than the ring
mechanism) is the pen loop which perfectly fits a Parker Jotter (a pen
probably worthy of its own post one day).  The main bulk of this
productivity system is then contained within these six tabbed
sections.

                                * * *



The first section is my diary.  I don't keep the full year in this,
only a rolling six months.  At the end of each month I'll remove the
previous month and add a new one.  I use a week on two pages layout
with pre-printed time stamps.  I've experimented with other layouts,
but this is by far my favourite one.  At the front I have a yearly
overview.  I look at this every day, striking off days as they pass
and highlighting vacations and other 'off days'.

                                * * *



The second section is my contacts.  I'm probably one of few people who
still keep track of my contacts like this, most people would likely
use their phones instead.  I have a phone of course, but I hate
everything about mobile layouts and would rather just have it all on
paper (which I do).

Nothing much to say about this.  I mainly serve an internal role at
work, so I have a sheet for each of our subsidiaries, and then the
people who work there with their phone numbers (I don't keep e-mail
addresses in this as they're easy enough to remember, and Outlook
automatically fetches them anyway from the company contact list when I
put together e-mails).

                                * * *



Now I'm going to start jumping a bit and go to the fifth section.
This is where I keep track of all my current projects.

I use the GTD definition of a project: anything that requires more
than one action to complete is a project.  So for example, I might
have a project called 'Write blog post about my productivity system'.
The actions for completing this project would be:

 - Start drafting a blog post about my productivity system
 - Photograph first section of my work Filofax
 - Photograph second section of my work Filofax
 - Photograph third section of my work Filofax
 - Photograph fourth section of my work Filofax
 - Photograph fifth section of my work Filofax
 - Photograph sixth section of my work Filofax
 - Get USB cable
 - Transfer photos from camera to computer
 - Go through photos and check what has to be edited out
 - Edit out private information from photos
 - Upload photos to server
 - Rewrite draft in Emacs
 - Convert text file to HTML
 - Upload HTML file to the server
 - Update the blog page index

I never break down projects like this, ever.  It's too overwhelming
for me to see long lists like this, and it's also too time consuming
to do this for every project.  For any given project, I'm perfectly
okay with just writing down the very next action I have to take to
move that project forward, I don't have to plan out the entire thing
in detail.

So if we're going with this example, and I'm just starting out with
it, the thing I'd put in my action list would be 'Start drafting a
blog post...'.  Everything else, the photographing, the rewriting, the
HTML conversion, would all follow naturally.  I don't need to spend
time organising the project, I just need to write down what will get
me started.

                                * * *



I keep these next actions in a separate list under section three.
Every day I go through my projects list and make sure that every
project on that list has at least one clearly defined next action.
When I sit down to work, I open up section three and I have a list of
actions that I can take.  I don't need to think about the actions, I
always write them in such a way that I know exactly what I need to do.

I don't sort them in any specific way, I don't have priorities or
colour codes or anything.  They're just actions that will move any of
my many projects forward.

The only thing I do is that I label each page with the actions'
context.  This is more or less a relic from when I used just one
binder, for both my personal and work related stuff.  I'd then label
the lists with '@office' if I had to do them at work, or '@home' if
they were private things.  I didn't like this, mainly because I had to
carry the binder back and forth between my apartment and the office,
which is why I now I have two separate binders instead.

When I'm done with a project or an action I'll strike it from the
list.  I do this by literally drawing a line across the action.  To me
this is much more visually clear that the task is done than for
example ticking off a box.

I still use some symbols to indicate what I've done.  A checkmark on
the bullet means that the action is completed, a cross means that I've
decided to not do the action for whatever reason.  If I've moved the
action to another place in the binder I'll indicate that with an
arrow.  Let's say for example that I've written an action which, when
I get to it, I realise will have to be a project.  I'll then strike it
from the list and put a rightwards arrow on the bullet, and then I'll
add it to the projects list instead.  That its rightwards means that
I've moved it forward in the binder, i.e. toward the project list.
Likewise, if I've moved a project from the projects list to the action
list, I'll indicate that with an arrow pointing left.

                                * * *



Sometimes I need to delegate actions to someone else.  I keep track of
these delegated actions under section four, which is my 'Waiting on'
list.  Here I put down the date I started waiting, the initials of the
person I'm waiting on, and a very brief description of what I'm
waiting on.  I go through this list every Friday and if I've waited
longer than I thought I would have I remind the person.  Many times
they will have forgotten about it.  I'm consistently the only person I
know who don't forget or have to be reminded about things, and that's
almost entirely thanks to this system.

                                * * *



The sixth and final section is my 'Someday/Maybe' list.  Here I keep
track of projects that (I think) should be done at some point in the
future.  They're projects that don't have to be done now, but when I
finish one of my current projects I'll go to this list and I'll assess
if any of the projects here should be elevated to a current project.

There's also a 'maybe' component so some of these projects.  When I
think of a project I'm not always sure if it has to or should be done,
but I also don't want to take a decision on that right away, so I put
them on this list for future assessment.

In my private Filofax this is also where I keep track of books I want
to read, things I want to buy, movies to watch, etc.  Anything I may
want to do at some point goes here.

                                * * *

So this is how I organise what I have to do, but I don't capture
things directly into this system, I have a separate tool for that.

For a while now I've been carrying an A6 sized Clairefontaine 'Age
Bag' notebook.  It fits perfectly in my front trouser pocket and I can
bring it everywhere I go.  It's less visually noisy than a Field Notes
which is what everyone seems to go on about right now.  The paper is
fantastic.  Clairefontaine has this wonderfully smooth, coated paper
which lends itself very well to fountain pens.  I like the detail of
the lines being blue/indigo rather than black or grey like they are in
most other notebooks.

This notebook is my EDC, I carry it all day, every day.  Whenever I
get an idea or some information is thrown at me, I jot it down inside.
I then review what I've written on a more or less daily basis.  I
identify actions and projects and add them to my lists, things that
might just be referential I'll add to my reference system.

I don't carry a 'real' diary.  The Filofax I described above is simply
too big to carry around.  But I still want to be able to see what
commitments I have for the week while I'm out and about.

To accomodate this I print the weekly view from Outlook every Monday.
Even though I have a paper diary, due to the nature of my work I also
need a digital one.  My digital diary is just a copy of my paper one,
whenever I add something to my main Filofax diary I'll also add it to
my digital Outlook one.  So, when I print the weekly view from Outlook
I get a list of all appointments I have during the week, with space
for me to add more as they come up.  I keep this printout in my
notebook, it goes with me everywhere.  It also helps me find my place
in the notebook as I always clip it to the first note of the week.

I have a separate system for my reference material, which might become
the subject of another post.  I've mainly lifted it from Neil of
Flatability fame.  You can see his videos on that system here [1][2].
Mine is very similar but with some minor adaptations.

Overall I'm very happy with this system.  It's not just easy to use,
but also fun.  It's completely customisable, and there is none of the
friction I felt back when I used digital solutions.


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJTtdsr1Cvw
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn7sIcYCGRA