BLS #22 - Productivity Systems
The comfort of a pencil
👋 Hello
2020 has been a weird year, to say the least. I am sure many of us are looking forward to a better year in 2021. As we are busy planning and setting goals for the new year, remember the following quote by James Clear from his popular book Atomic Habits.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
As you set goals, think about what systems and habits you need to develop to support your goals.
Yina gave a great presentation yesterday on building a productivity dashboard to track your goals with daily and weekly habits tackers.
The problem with such systems is, it takes a lot of effort to feed the data and maintain the system in long run. But we can gather a lot of useful feedback from the data. And such systems helps us to be honest with the progress we are making with our goals and work.
Most people’s productivity system should include at least the following systems.
Track daily and weekly routines/habits
Manage Tasks/Calendar
Plan the day(Most Important Tasks/Time Blocking)
Do daily, weekly, monthly and annual reviews
Write journals
There are many apps available to do these things. Most common are google docs/sheets, Notion, RoamResearch, Evernote and Onenote. I use a combination of google sheets and Roam Reserach.
I have been thinking of designing a personal productivity app to accomplish some or all of the above features. Seeing Yina’s presentation brought back the memories of many ideas I had for this product. Now I have one more thing to do in 2021.
What systems do you use for your personal productivity?
📖 What I've Been Reading
No Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
🔍 Interesting Reads
Here are a few things I wanted to share with you this week.
1. The comfort of a pencil by Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon, the author of Steel Like an Artist and Share Your Work, has great recommendation for pencils and many others things related to pencils.
2. This is my Stop by Linda
Linda shares her story on why she rejected the Instagram offer and left a startup to pursue her own interest. She writes
Why trade time for money when you can trade value for money? The internet has massively expanded the spectrum of possible careers — a generational shift that remains highly under-appreciated.
I would love to talk to you and get to know you more. Hit reply or send a DM on Twitter. If your friend forwarded you this email, you can Signup for the newsletter here