How do you organize your thoughts/goals/life?

[lacroix]

I'm interested in hearing how the ambitious guys here organize everything that's going on. Personally, I have ADHD, and my life is kind of a mess. Unfinished projects, an apartment that is beyond cluttered, troubles on the job, massive procrastination, you name it. I've got things in my todo lists that are years old at this point. My lack of organization (and subsequent procrastination) is probably one of the top things holding me back in life.

That said, I've wrested some order out of the chaos.

* I use Todoist and Google Keep both as a sort of "brain dump" for whatever random thoughts cross my mind. Todoist more for todo items, Keep more for general reference materials
* Every Sunday I write a few paragraphs about my previous week in a private journal. I also set some goals for myself, like "do not play video games after 11:30pm." I also set small monetary stakes, for example each night I play video games after 11:30pm I will donate $5 to charity. Sometimes I do end up having to donate, but the extra incentive can really help.
* For daily tasks (that are YES/NO) or things I have to keep track a daily amount of (like approaches per day) I use an Android app called Habits. For example, I can tell you that in the month of October I've gotten exercise three times (not good), had a 22 day streak where I hit on at least one girl per day, and have consumed 260mg of Adderall
* At work (I am a software engineer), I have a text file with all of my various todo items, completely segregated from my personal todoist. Honestly, my work life is also kind of a mess, there's always like two dozen things I'm juggling at once.
* At work, I also create a temporary document in our Google docs equivalent for each individual "project" or "task" where I have to save commands, observations, or various information related to that particular task.
* Google Calendar for all of my appointments in my personal life, and Outlook for all of my work appointments

I'm thinking of trying out the "Getting Things Done" method to organizing life. I'm interested in hearing what the ambitious guys here do to organize all the various SHIT in your life

 

[nipple-flip]

here's something that has worked well for me at work. for context, i'm a relatively new software engineer who just switched into this career in July. i work at a tiny startup with zero onboarding or mentorship, so i have been largely responsible for my own learning and there is a deluge of raw information for me to consume and translate into something useful. i don't mean to claim any kind of organizational expertise, but i think i would be a lot worse off if i were flying by the seat of my pants. i am very disorganized and a huge procrastinator like you, and this has helped me navigate the overwhelm at work.


- have three folders, one called `daily_notes`, one called `daily_notes_archive`, and one called `well_organized_notes`
- every morning during standup (i.e. when i can guarantee my computer will be open) i have a script on a cron job that generates an empty file with the current day's date, titled `YYYY-MM-DD.md` in the daily notes folder
- any time something catches my eye, or i have any kind of thought in general, i write it down in that file, totally freeform and without making any kind of attempt to organize it
- once a week on Friday, i look back at that week's daily notes files and pull chunks out to create and curate important notes. these new better notes go into the well organized notes folder. examples are like "commands to remember", "how to deploy", "microservices graph", "big project ideas" and the like
- that script i mentioned before deletes any empty .md files that it finds, and moves any notes older than 14 days old into the archive folder. this keeps the daily notes folder easy to look at

the result is that all important things end up in a well organized note with title and appropriate curation. daily notes end up in the archive. on days where i don't write anything down, the files just get deleted. the critical thing here is that the short term cost for writing anything down is basically zero. you just throw it in that day's daily notes file without making any decisions or using any willpower. this way, there are zero obstacles for stream-of-consciousness thought. only later, if something looks like it's going to be important, do you spend energy putting it in the right place.

i think this is pretty specifically suited for writing documentation quickly when you don't know what you don't know (i.e. in a work setting), BUT i have also been considering doing something similar for my personal journal. i have a lot of "aha" moments that i want to write down in a special place to reference later, but there are decisions and decision fatigue around doing that, so i usually end up just writing them down in that day's journal entry and then forgetting to ever read them again. then on a whim every few weeks or so, when i reread my journal entries, i'm like "damn this was super insightful, i wish i was reading this every day to keep me on track". so i think the same approach can fix that problem.

 

[Laurelius]

Regarding priorities, this guy changed my year with his guide. I did it at the beginning of the year, and I crushed all my goals by June.

Regarding productivity, I honestly think The Motivation Hacker changed my life. It made me realize I was wasting my time on things I didn't care about, and the importance of continuous improvement.

My problem was I knew I had and wanted to be productive, but didn't know how. The techniques explained in that book made my more efficient than ever before.

Good luck mate.

 

[Svadhishthana]

My strategies ebb and flow with how I'm feeling. When I feel unmotivated and aimless, I know it's time for some journalling and introspection. I'll write out a brain dump either on paper or on Google drive. I can type faster than I can write, so if I already have a good idea of what I'm going to write, drive is better. But if I'm feeling truly aimless, I'll use pen and paper, go for a walk at least 10 minutes away from any distractions, and force myself to write. Where I am in life, and where I want to be, why I'm dissatisfied (I really dive deep into this one to try to unearth underlying issues), what I'm going to prioritize, what direction I can take, where I want to be and when given this direction, lists of actionable steps, and timelines. I did a recent entry in my log that is basically a condensed version of this for a short term goal I have.

For big projects, I use Trello, with columns of Backlog, Todo, On Hold, Doing, Done, Knowledge. For day-to-day faffing about, I use a minimalist notepad app on my phone. For tracking workouts or food, I typically use a physical notebook. For recurring Todo lists and scheduling, I use Google calendar.

I've tried more structured approaches, but they never seem to hold up long term. Life seems to have a way of throwing a wrench into out best laid plans.

 

[Sprezza]

-Evernote for all important notes, goals, thoughts, ideas divided into subject areas business, fashion, game e.g
-Todoist for daily tasks + automated to do tasks. Really smooth functionality

But to be honest the most important thing is to actually have priorities and not work on more than one big goal and a smaller one. Also having a long term vision helps a lot. The mental work is the key.

From previous experiences I have always procrastinated due to being overwhelmed by tasks/multiple unrealistic goals which led to mediocre results. Take it step by step.
There is plenty of time as long as you take daily action.