I have automated my agenda and todo work items using #emacs #org-mode it’s been a journey over 4 years worth of continuous improvement, and my productivity is through the roof. I have my weekends, and I go into them having my work for the next week planned out and queued up for Monday morning.
Discussion
I must check out eMac’s although I’ve more or less settled on my workflow.
I do something similar, but currently use Obsidian and Notion to work through tasks and keep relevant notes on everything I've done over the course of the day.
I've often had to revert to previous notes on a project to get an understanding of where it has been left and in many cases even to figure out how to approach it. It saves so much time, otherwise I end up in the constant cycle of figuring things out rather that catching up and getting ahead.
The brain is great at creating new ideas and not that great at keeping old ones available and relevant. Notes of one kind or another are perfect for retaining this info for another date when we may need it.
The concepts are platform neutral, I gravitated to emacs because of personal interest and I like that my org-mode files are human readable text files should all else fail for access and backup.
“The brain is great at creating new ideas and not that great at keeping old ones available and relevant.”
The concept solution is call “building a second brain” off load the remembering to your system, and free your mind for creative thought.
Another concept worth considering is “PIM” Personal information management. The guy at the blog below taught me a lot. Again, he uses org-mode, but the concepts are platform neutral.
Seems similar to the zettelkasten system. That’s the one I try to follow. I took what was useful to built a basic system on those principles.
Glad to find I’m not the only one who finds systems like this useful!!
I’ll have to create some notes from your link 😜
Nice, and same on Zettelkasten, been borrowing form it for a while.
Speaking of which, Scott Scheper kindly provided me with a copy off his book on the subject which he released over the holidays.
That’s funny, I stumbled across his YouTube channel since the holidays. Been working my way through the material.
without using Org Mode terminology, can you describe your todo/planning? Are you prioritizing? Time blocking?
There is a technique called Eat the Frog where you pick the one thing that MUST get done on a day, that works for me if I am procrastinating. I actually add a Frog emoji - LOL - 🐸 🐸
I’m actually living on due dates. My next step on leveling up my productivity is adding priority to key task, but the first step is assigning a due date for each and every task that comes across my inbox that I don’t immediately complete. This clarifies my day today immensely.
I’m addition to the due dates the task are associated with the specific project they are for. The urgency of my various projects helps define my since of priority.
I use #timeboxing to help set targets for my teams work, I find my teams are much more responsive to “Let’s see how much we can get done by XX date” rather than “Item 1 due Tuesday, 2 due Thursday, and 3 next Friday”
The specific due dates are more for my personal task management.