I’ve always been a student of personal organization and to do lists. Not necessarily because I’m super organized, it’s because I’m lazy. Truth be told, I don’t like to work. I want to spend time with my family and do the things that I enjoy. That means that I have to optimize getting all of the things done that I don’t really want to do but have to do, including my job. In my on-going quest for the best personal system I’m always trying to find something that follows these simple rules:
• My system must be as simple as it can possibly be and still be effective for me.
• My system must be Mac and iOS-based, it’s what I own and is always with me.
• My system must lower my stress and make me think less about the things I need to do so that I can relax.
• My system must require little to no maintenance.
• Bonus, my system should help make me better.
I’ve had three major influences and several minor influences along the way, which have helped get me to where I am today. There is, and will always be, room for improvement. Here are my three major influences:
1. My Dad – every Saturday morning, there would be a yellow legal pad with lists of what needed to be done that day. There was a list for my Dad, for me, my brother, and my sister. Until the list was done, there was no playing or anything else. My Dad showed this example and I did my best to follow it. To this day, I make lists. I function on lists. Lists get all the information out of my head and in front of my eyes so that I can prioritize and plan what I can do today.
2. Asian Efficiency – these two guys wrote a fantastic primer to using a tool called OmniFocus, which is what I use. It combines some methodology from Getting Things Done by David Allen with how to most effectively use OmniFocus. I like to think that these guys updated GTD for the modern world with step-by-step and detailed instructions on how to get started.
3. Inbox Zero – there cannot be two systems of record. Either your e-mail is your list of things to do, or you keep your list somewhere else. I don’t care which, but you can’t have two lists. That is just confusing. I keep my inbox empty. If I can do it quickly, I just do it. If I can’t do it quickly, then I create a quick task to do it later in OmniFocus. I also try to only do email a couple of times a day and I don’t live on it all of the time. That makes me reactive and I want to face the day proactively.
I use OmniFocus as my source of everything that I need to do. I use Evernote to keep all of my notes. Finally, I use Microsoft Outlook for my work and personal e-mail. I use all three of these software tools on all of my devices every day.
I will let you get the OmniFocus primer from Asian Efficiency if you want to learn specifically what I’m doing in OmniFocus, but essentially I do every day based on three lists.
Morning Routine
The first list I look at every day is my morning routine. When I wake up, my goal is to do the same thing every day, almost on auto-pilot, to jump start my day and get ahead. My morning routine list is called “Get After It”, which I got from Jocko Willink. This list is a recurring list of tasks in order, which happens every single day. Mine looks like this:
Objectives
This list is different every day. As part of my morning routine, I pick the things that I’m going to do each day. Sometimes I’ll plan things for a future day, which will show up on this list. For example, I needed to power wash the patio the day before my son’s birthday party. So, I put it on my list and set it to be due the day before the party. It then shows up on my objectives list for today. All of my not due items are all in projects. I scan through these projects on a regular basis and set due dates or put flags on important items. Not important items just sit there, they don’t get done.
Evening Routine
My evening routine is the same as the morning routine. There are things that I do every evening to get squared away. This routine is very important to me because it sets up a good night, which means I want to get up early and keep it going. If I finish my nighttime routine, then I have a sense of peace, sleep better, get up early, and keep the cycle going.
The last part of my system, at a high level, is to use an inbox. This is straight from GTD and this functionality it built into OmniFocus. Whenever I randomly think of something that I need to do or an idea for later, I put it in my Inbox in OmniFocus. As part of my morning routine, I sort that Inbox and pick my Objectives for the day.
There you have it, this is my routine at a high level. I’ll likely write more detailed blogs on individual parts, but I wanted to get the overview out there.
Jon