So my plan had been to write a post entitled ‘The Tools you can use’. It was going to be (and it will be) an overview of the different tools you can use to get your work done. To be effective. But I’ve pressed pause on that and am instead going to write about the Tools I use. Then I will do an overview of how my personal productivity system works. Let’s get going.
As I’ve mentioned before, a good system needs 3 basic tools. A calendar, a notes app and a to do list app. My productivity hub is in my notes app. This is where everything starts really. I am using Evernote for this. Evernote have recently updated themselves and I am impressed with what they are doing and excited for what is to come. I use Evernote in 4 main ways. First as my planner. This is where I generate ideas, plan years, quarters and months. It is where I have my day ‘command center’ showing my plan and focus for the day. Second, it is for straight up note taking. Books, meetings, thoughts etc they all go in Evernote. Third, I manage projects here. Plans, notes, actual work and tasks (though more on this below). Fourth and finally as a record keeper for important stuff like receipts and other documents.
The main reasons for using Evernote at present are, the ease of integration, the quick capture, the ease of organising and the search. All of these are some of the best in their class. I’ve looked at other apps, some I prefer in some ways but in these core functions, they are not as good.
My To-Do list manager is ToDoist. But first a quick mention of Pleexy. Pleexy is an automation app. I’m on Pleexy’s free plan and basically any note I create in Evernote, if I tag it with @auto-todoist and then create To-Do items in the note, then they are automatically synced to ToDoist. This is a bi-directional sync. It just means I can manage tasks in Evernote and ToDoist for my projects with ease and without duplicating work.
ToDoist – this is where I plan out my tasks for the day, and the week. I have tasks from projects, areas of focus and my simple routine tasks. I like ToDoist for the global quick capture shortcuts on every device, the lightning fast sync, the ease of organisation, the flexibility and ultimately how intuitive it is to use.
For my calendar, I just use google. Simple, effective and does what I need it to.
Those are my 3 core apps. Around these apps and tools are many others.
For all my writing work, spreadsheets etc I tend to use Google’s suite of tools as they are available anywhere though for some work stuff I have to use Word and Excel. I am even toying with using google docs right now to write this post and have an add on which should export it to my blog.
I use Toggl to track my time so I can see how I am using it and my current browser of choice is the Brave Browser. I like the privacy features alongside its similarity to Chrome. For password management I have recently switched from Lastpass to Bitwarden.
I track all my finances in Moneydance.
Lastly, physical tools. I have a notebook and 2 sets of pens that I use. The notebook is an AHGXG Soft Cover A5 Dotted Notebook that I bought from Amazon. So far, the best notebook I have ever bought and I will continue to use them. I have a set of 20 coloured Staedtler triplus fineliners which I use for most writing and then a similar number of different coloured Papermate Flair medium felt tipped pens for headers and bold text.
That is about it really. That is what I use. As I go through my system in the next post, you will see how those tools all play their part.
Stuff Matters 