Where to start, how to start, how to make your efforts valuable? There are a lot of approaches and ultimately it will take reflection to determine what works best for you. Some prefer to stick to something small, others prefer to target and chip away at the thing causing them the most stress. Personally I would recommend a middle ground, but again, that is personal!
The big problem with all this, is that it is a big problem. There are many directions to tackle the problem and all of them are correct in some manner. To attempt to break it down you will need to refine a system, how you do that doesn’t matter much as it will end up being highly personal to what works for you.
The one major component I would recommend for everyone however (and this is important in security and likely other careers), is to have a single intake or source of truth. Things tend to become unmanageable if you spread them out and it ultimately ends up becoming more work to consolidate, more friction in your system. Identify a singular solution for taking in thoughts, tasks, issues, etc. It should be incredibly easy to put things in, and should hopefully interface well with the other components you utilize.
How you organize and handle those tasks, the requirements they have, is a whole other mess of issues.
Examples #
Now for some examples to add context to all the above. Let’s say a couple both use Apple devices and are generally on the Apple ecosystem. They could use Notes app to jot down anything top of mind in the moment from their phone or macbook. Then later process them into reminders and or schedule calendar entries for them. They can share their calendars (and reminders I think?) with each other. So this gives them a basic intake process and a basic way to keep track of some things. It lacks some inter-connectivity and is certainly more closed off, but if their requirements are simple that is good enough.
Figuring out what you require is key to this part, but be warned not to get caught in the ‘Productivity Trap’ of watching influencers attempting to sell you on a particular method or tool, and constantly spending effort refining systems that you aren’t actually using to make progress on the real tasks you need to accomplish.
Considerations #
Some things to consider when deciding on requirements:
- Whether an application/technology is open source, has commercial or corporate oversight, how well supported or stable it appears.
- There is nothing more frustrating than getting setup on something to find you have locked yourself in for some enshittification. Finding a technology was bought out by venture capitalists is a death knell and you are better off finding something else. A lot of things pose as open source these days while effectively being managed or owned by a for profit company, so keep an eye out for that before making your judgement call.
- The ability to migrate to another technology if required.
- How effectively you would be able to extend functionality if your requirements change.
- Access from other devices, how well supported something is on different OSes, etc.
- Whether you need real time syncing, syncing when just at home, or none at all.
My Workflow #
So! What am I using? Presently I use Obsidian for most of my system. You have to be careful with that app as it is very easy to get caught in the productivity trap with it. I only use three community plugins (QuickAdd - For quick task creation, Tasks - For tasks management, Templater - for note templates).
Obsidian works cross platform and has a paid sync feature which I currently use (but it is easy enough to implement a free sync yourself). It is primarily a note taking application, but can be used for simple task management. I like it because it is incredibly easy to capture stray thoughts into a daily note, or to quickly create a task. I use my daily notes as a scratchpad that I will process into more refined tasks as required. All untagged tasks I create quickly go into an “inbox” where I will refine, tag, and assign them accordingly.
My task management is simply tagged tasks into four categories: “This week”, “Next four weeks”, “This quarter”, “Long Term/On-Hold” I have a note that is a simple dashboard that sorts tasks into those categories by tag. Anything untagged gets put into an ‘Inbox’ for me to process and tag accordingly as mentioned. I find this simple method with no hard specified dates avoids the busy work of having to update dates if something runs long, and also reduces the stress and anxiety for not meeting deadlines. You get over that mental block of dreading updating your tasks and more easily return to making more progress. Life happens, things come up, the important part is that you eventually ground yourself and continue.
For easy reminders I just presently use Apple Reminders but figuring out a calendar/reminder/contacts solution is on the back burner there just presently is not enough of a need at the moment.
If you are feeling overwhelmed just Keep It Simple. Use a physical notepad, maybe a small one on the go and a larger one for refining thoughts at home. Jot down thoughts, refine your ideas into some actionable tasks. Pick any random thing you are confident you can achieve in a day (start small). Then do it! I found physical writing really helps bootstrap my thinking. Just start writing something, then you can refine it as you go.
Final Note #
Beware the productivity trap! It is so very easy to use refining your system as a way to procrastinate on tasks. After all you are improving productivity, so that must be productive! I have been in and out of that trap a few times, there are some good things down there, but almost every pretty productivity system you see someone advertising ends up being mostly performative for the views and engagement. If you spend enough time down there you realize they are all just recycling the same basic tips dolled up to look like something new. Ultimately if you want work done, you will need to do it. A system can help make your effort more valuable and aligned with your goals, but effort is still ultimately effort. Sitting with your thoughts and a notepad, working on self-reflection, identifying what you want vs what you need, working on learning and understanding yourself, will all go a long way to improving yourself more than a productivity system.
