You fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear from his book Atomic Habits Notion “You do not rise to the level of your goals. Without some systems and processes to guide me I struggle to find and/or maintain momentum. I’m also too chaotic, unfocused and susceptible to chronic, anxiety inducing procrastination. Perhaps my career over the last two decades as a Software Developer has influenced this. I recently discussed this with my wife, whom I believe knows me better than I know myself at times, and she instantly identified me as belonging to the architect archetype. While I’ve acted much like the librarian in the past and do identify with that archetype by storing in notes in apps like Evernote, Apple Notes and KeepIt among others, I need more structure and processes to help me act upon the information and ideas I’m capturing. Collates information to build a catalogue of knowledge which they can easily search to retrieve ideas. Grows ideas through connects and exploration. Structures ideas and information through planning, processes and frameworks. Ali was referring to a blog post on Ness Labs which talked about the three main note-taking styles: The first time I believe I was only half paying attention, trying to absorb a Youtube video by Ali Abdaal, no doubt while also trying to work on something else. Very recently I was introduced a second time to the concept of note-taking styles. It’s not enough of a solution for me to store things without a system in which I act upon it, or feel secure in the knowledge that I have it somewhere safe and that I can easily retrieve it later should I need to. Worse yet I hadn’t been capturing everything so my brain was (is) still left to hold ideas and tasks, inducing anxiety about what I know, where I know it, and what I don’t know because it’s fallen through the cracks. I was capturing most things in whatever app(s) were the current darling of the productivity works, promising to be the solution I’d been looking for and I ended up with information in many places with nothing to unite those stores of information. Over the past 15+ years I’ve tried various tools, systems and processes, but I’ve always failed to establish they key part of the above, a system I trust and thereby use with intentionality.Įach additional item I added to the system resulted in another information silo in which I studiously stored pieces of information or tasks, then never really looked at them. David advocates having a “trusted system” in which you capture, store and surface information and actions at the right time. “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David AllenĪ well known piece of wisdom from the author of the highly popular and well known book Getting Things Done : The Art of Stress-free Productivity (affiliate link).
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