One of my projects I'm working on right now is a new productivity/accountability system. I have modeled it after my own method of getting things done and have been using it for forty five days as I built it.
Roughly two weeks ago I invited some friends and members of my forum to use it. None of them use it in the same way I do. Many of them stopped using it because it was too different from how they get things done.
So, I'm curious. How do you get things done? Do you schedule your whole day in Outlook? Do you keep a running Todo list and do what you can? Do you write down three things that MUST get done that day? Do you just meander through the day and do things as you think of them? Something else?
I'd love to read about your system and the rationale for using it. I'll be giving out a new round of invites soon, and anyone who shares their method/system in the comments will get an invite during that round.
Thanks!
Now it's time for the one post that everyone's been waiting for. The 2010 Gear Post.
For a quick background: my method is to have very few items, all of which are as small as possible and as awesome as possible. The goal is to have a tiny bag but be prepared for absolutely everything. This year I've gotten closer to that ideal than ever before. You can see my 2009 packing list here to compare.
The Bag: Ortlieb Flight 22
I've written about my attempts to use Evernote as a to do list but mostly failed because my to do's often didn't get done when they needed to. The biggest problem for me was keeping them organized without another dedicated app - since I've learned how I really use my iPhone.
I've tried many options - my iPhone bottom row being a revolving door - for the to-do list. Lifehacker has suggestions, Workflowy is great for lists but didn't fit me quite right. Then, I started combining different Evernote searches and found this search combination tag:todo, todo:false.
This returns any notes tagged 'todo' and that have check boxes unchecked. This combination works for me because I like using the check boxes for steps in a series like goals for a day or party planning. So to only search for the unchecked boxes - todo:false - would be unhelpful as 46 of my 439 notes are like this. Some of those notes I use as templates to copy over like using Evernote to create trip plans or party preparation.
What I've done is add the tag todo to the notes with check boxes for things that I really need to get done. Then created a saved search that looks for the todo tag as well as the unchecked box.