November 1, 2023
I’ve Experimented With Personal Productivity for 18 Months. Here’s What I’ve Learnt
Nov 01, 2023
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I am obsessed with productivity systems. From Ali Abdaal to James Clear, Keep Productive to Cal Newport… task apps, calendars, daily planners, and personal knowledge management—if it exists in the Apple ecosystem, chances are I’ve tried it before.
Have I become more productive after this exercise? Yes! I can’t imagine going back to the life of drifting aimlessly, living life by default and not by design. However, I went past the point of diminishing returns a long time ago.
Fiddling around with productivity tools has become its own form of procrastination. It’s a more dangerous sort because it tricks you into believing that you are much more productive than you actually are.
There are plenty of courses teaching you how to implement GTD, Zettelkasten, and PARA methods. Many are free; others are unjustifiably expensive. I found myself unable to stick to a fixed system, but it pays to understand the underlying core principles.
Even now, I encourage my peers and juniors to dive into the world of productivity systems and tools. But to avoid the same pitfalls, here’s a summary of what I’ve learned thus far:
Picking Out an Ecosystem
I think it’s OK to keep up to date with the latest trends in the productivity space. However, it’s essential to be mindful of the migration cost of constantly switching between different ecosystems.
Every day, I receive a new email highlighting new A.I. capabilities or a feature that makes the app perfect for specific use cases, but it’s generally not worth the jump.
I fell down the productivity rabbit hole because I want to enjoy my day job, but there is a clear distinction between enjoying using an app and doing the actual work. Most new features are unlikely to make you productive, even with “GPT” in the headline.
Here are things to consider if you’re looking to commit to an ecosystem:
1. Create a List of Requirements and Priorities
This is the most challenging step, and I recommend taking time to think this through. Even the most obscure app has a dedicated fanbase because it does one niche thing and does it well.
Every app has strengths and weaknesses, and ranking your requirements is critical to stopping yourself from succumbing to the shiny object syndrome. The parameters to consider include cost, supported platforms, UI/UX, quick capture capabilities, dedicated features, collaboration, and file storage.
2. Decide If You Want an Integrated System or a Best-of-Breed
A single app that does everything, from task management to notes, is unlikely to be powerful or customisable (Noteplan 3, TickTick). On the other hand, using highly specialised dedicated apps can be expensive and complicated to keep track of (Things 3, Cron, Obsidian).
Deciding this early on will help you narrow down your options a lot. In most cases, you will adopt a hybrid approach—but deciding how to segment it is a decision by itself. Most people I found online prefer bundling tasks and calendars into a daily planner while having a separate PKMS / note-taking system.
3. Abuse the Free Trials
Productivity tools can be expensive, but most have a comfortable trial period to test them out, ranging from 7 days to a whole month. Some tips include:
Cancelling your subscription immediately after signing up to prevent unexpected charges
Having multiple email accounts to extend the testing period,
Taking advantage of rewards (limited-time discounts, referral bonuses, cancellation discounts).
Only pay for apps that you are sure you will stick to for months at least.
Workflow Matters More Than Technology
Not only is it free to learn a workflow from YouTube videos and Reddit threads, but systems and processes significantly impact productivity more than the technology itself.
Productivity apps exist to facilitate processes, not dictate them on your behalf. Many apps are designed to suit a specific workflow (Omnifocus with GTD), and you can’t use the app to its fullest extent without understanding the principles it is built upon in the first place.
Adopting a new app sometimes only involve a slight tweak to your workflow, but others demand an entire overhaul, and it took me some time to learn where to draw the line—especially when I haven’t figured out a default workflow yet.
Most apps come with help documentation, and it is worth taking 30 minutes to review the app’s core features quickly. Some apps do not have a straightforward user onboarding journey (cough Obsidian), which makes them very non-beginner-friendly. However, most apps I’ve encountered have YouTube tutorials and reviews highlighting how to use the app as intended.
When creating a personalised workflow, my advice is to keep it simple and stupid. For instance, systems like Zettelkasten are effective but require constant maintenance to upkeep. They’re great for academics or journalists but are called digital gardens for a reason. It is only beneficial when you have thousands of notes and spend most of your day managing textual data.
But for most people, it takes effort to upkeep the system daily. Capturing and using atomic notes is more troublesome than Googling or understanding the subject matter outright.
Currently, I’m using a dumbed-down version of GTD for task management and time-blocking. I also have a single folder to dump all my notes, navigating them solely using tags and smart searches. It’s fast and gets the job done.
The Role of Fun and Readiness in Productivity
A big hurdle for me when choosing productivity apps or workflows was deciding between user experience and everything else, such as cost, A.I. capabilities, data privacy, etc.
Affordable apps with great UX tend to lack features. An app that does everything like Sunsama and Akiflow is expensive.
Obsidian is an excellent example of this—it’s fast, quick, highly customisable and a beast of a PKMS tool. But I hardly used backlinks, and I spent more time tinkering with the system than actually processing and producing content. Scrolling through my list of installed community plugins gives me anxiety. I disliked having to wait for notes to sync every time I switched devices and how it’s not designed for the Apple Pencil.
On the other hand, apps like Things 3 are dead simple to use. The UX/UI is wonderful, and you can tell that the developers have spent years finicking over the tiniest of details. But it lacks basic functionality compared to many other apps, like natural language input, streamlined time-blocking abilities and more.
From personal experience, especially for someone new in the productivity space, it’s worth prioritising the “fun” -ness of the app over its features.
Adopting a powerful tool and workflow for future-proofing is tempting. You may want to find the “best” ever app or workflow and stick to it. But very rarely is there the “best” app—the only one that is right for you now. Switching methodologies as time passes is common, but the problem lies in how we change.
Hence, for new practitioners, having a fun system to dedicate towards is more important. It’s not worth setting up a more convoluted system for a 2% increase in productivity.
It’s not that these advanced systems suck or are over-engineered. It’s that we are not ready to take advantage of these advanced systems just yet—which leads to the following:
Output Is the Only Thing That Matters
I was inspired to write this article because of a recent note migration exercise involving 550~ notes collected throughout a year, which, granted, is a small amount within the PKMS space.
Because of formatting issues, I had to import them manually one by one—which allowed me to review my notes and purge many irrelevant ones.
I ended up with only 75 notes afterwards—most of it is my published content and essential details on my friends and family. Most of my Zettelkasten notes and Readwise highlights didn’t make it.
This made me reflect on my approach towards note-taking:
Is building a second brain overrated?
Why bother with digital productivity when the great minds in the past could do well with pen and paper?
How important is note organisation in relation to note creation?
Why am I outsourcing my remembering process instead of adequately understanding, contemplating, and digesting the content I’ve read?
After sitting on these questions, I concluded that digital productivity and PKMS tools are still very much relevant. The fact that I am delivering results at work more consistently than before and still have 75 important notes in the first place is attributed to the systems I have built, and is worth celebrating.
But it’s also a stark reminder that our productivity systems only exist to help us do important work better and faster. The system is rarely the bottleneck—we are.
Right now, I’m trying to stick to the “whatever works” principle. I’m using Apple native tools for now—Notes, Reminders and Calendarall of which compelled me to switch to the Apple ecosystem 18 months ago.
Of course, I will still try out new tools for fun. I’ll probably write a few reviews on them down the road—as long as I recognise it for what it truly is, a hobby and curious pursuit instead of an attempt to be more productive.
CoThinking
productivity
technology
October 30, 2023
Why Everyone Should Learn Task Management
Oct 30, 2023
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Thanks to the availability of AI tools like ChatGPT, completing tasks is easier than ever before.
Work that once took hours can now be completed in mere minutes, which is a dream for any knowledge worker—whether you’re a student, professional, or even a homemaker.
However, completing tasks does not necessarily translate to being a productive person. That’s because task management and task completion are, in fact, two separate skill sets.
The act of doing is different from planning what to do and how to do it. It is still up to us, the user, to ensure that the completed work actually fulfils the objectives we’ve set.
Hence, we believe that task management is a fundamental skill that every working professional should cultivate—serving as the foundation for other, more complex skills to come.
Here are the reasons why:
It Helps Us Prioritise
A task management system forces us to make conscious decisions on our priorities for the day.
Without a task management system, we work passively instead of making an active choice of what needs to be done. Clueless and lost—we will only have a vague idea of your objectives for the day.
Chances are, our priorities will also be short-term. We are only concerned with our next immediate task on top of our minds, living day-to-day on “attention paychecks”.
Without proper task management, every new task entering our inbox will seem urgent and important, even when that is not necessarily the case.
Worst of all, we will be pulled out of deep focus—which is more detrimental than the time it takes to complete these ad hoc tasks. The cost of dropping actual important work just to pursue these low-value ad hoc tasks is rarely worth it.
Once we are “out of the zone,” it takes significant effort to get back into it.
How often did you get disrupted by a simple phone message, only to return back to work uninterrupted immediately?
If left unchecked, we might find ourselves extremely busy and yet feel unaccomplished at the same time because the work that matters has been pushed back. It is difficult to prioritize our attention and focus when we lack visibility over it.
Conversely, properly managing our tasks will:
Give us an overview of our work over a longer time frame—helping us understand how our work today will impact “future us” tomorrow.
Set clear boundaries between work tasks, personal tasks, or any other form of commitment that we have.
Better visibility over the deadlines of certain projects and the effort it requires to achieve them.
Prioritisation Tips for Task Management
Eisenhower Matrix
Tasks have two types of statuses—importance and urgency. Importance is based on impact, while urgency is based on time.
It is possible for unimportant tasks that need to be handled urgently, while possible for important tasks that do not have a close deadline.
Understanding this concept can help us better prioritise our tasks.
Time Blocking
I use a combination of a to-do list and a calendar, where tasks and commitments are properly scheduled. I also include leisure and break time as well.
This meant that every hour of my day had its purpose and was intentional. There is a high chance that we can’t adhere to the schedule entirely—but the point is not to discipline ourselves according to the timeline given. It is the act of assigning the task for the allocated time and giving that hour a specific purpose that matters.
Breaking up Large Projects
Procrastination is a mix of perfectionism, high self-esteem, and the fear of failure. Hence, tackling a large task head-on will paralyze you emotionally and mentally. You can’t fail or do subpar work when the work is technically not done in the first place.
This is especially true for projects that are deceptively easy. For instance, “writing an article” involves researching, thinking, outlining, designing, editing, and rewriting.
Breaking the project up into tiny chunks makes it more actionable and thus more approachable. Ticking checkboxes for sub-tasks is evidence that you are making some sort of progress in completing the project as a whole.
It Frees up Mental Space
The only logical alternative to having a task management system is to memorize them in our heads physically. To do that properly, we will have to remember a lot.
Not only will we have to factor in the name of the task, but we also need to understand the:
These are questions that need to be answered subconsciously, whether beforehand or while we’re hands-on doing the actual work. However, keeping this information at the back of your mind while working on other tasks takes up a lot of unnecessary mental energy and stress-inducing.
Thinking about different tasks all the time will constantly haunt you like a ghastly presence. If you do not externalise your tasks, such as jotting it down on a piece of paper, you are constantly shifting information to and from your long-term memory and short-term attention.
Without a task management system, there is an element of fear:
Fear of forgetting to complete a task
Fear of not completing the task up to specification
Fear of the repercussions of not doing the task properly.
The mental space it occupies prevents you from truly focusing on the important work in front of you.
The goal of task management is to offload the “remembering process” to an external device. It could be a to-do app with the ability to add descriptions or even a note-taking tool. In an ideal scenario, the key idea is to cut down the number of times you need to worry about your tasks.
Because without proper task management, your attention will be fractured, like a desktop computer with multiple tasks running in the background.
Are People Who Manage Tasks Just Nerds?
I have personally met people who have a strange sense of pride in not needing to rely on these external tools. They believe that all systems are fallible—A disk might be corrupted, data will be lost, and a notepad might be replaced.
The brain is the ultimate task management tool, they say. They believe that the time and effort needed to upkeep the task management system should be spent on completing the task itself.
Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who are also often forgetful. From my work experience, they also show up to meetings late, never show up at all, or notify team members of important items at the last minute.
We shouldn’t be overconfident in our mind’s ability to remember—not in an age of rising mental disorders and illness. Our minds are not built for rote memorisation, which is what external tools are for. Rather, our mind excels at building connections, establishing relationships, crafting stories, and generating ideas.
Task management is not intended just for nerds but for everyone in general.
It Helps You Become More Fulfilled
Task management is not about doing more work but doing work intentionally.
Here is a thought experiment: How often do you get around completing tasks that you truly care about?
Perhaps there is a restaurant that you wanted to visit but have forgotten—so you defaulted towards the nearest fast-food joint. Perhaps you have a blockbuster show that you really wanted to watch but found yourself scrolling through TikTok, feeling less fulfilled instead.
Task management helps us avoid living life by default but rather by design. At the very least, we were given the choice of choosing between TikTok or the blockbuster movie. Personally, I have created an interest board in my to-do list where I included a list of places to visit, foods to eat, and movies to watch.
Proper task management is also the catalyst needed to bring out the best in people. Take, for instance, great artists, celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, and the great minds of the world that we look up to.
Generally, they do more than their day jobs. They have commitments beyond work, such as managing multiple NGOs, giving speeches, meeting friends, and pursuing personal habits and interests—all while being dutiful parents, spouses, and being great friends to be around.
It is nearly impossible to balance all of these commitments without a proper task management system, whether outsourced to a personal assistant or via a to-do app. Their ability to manage tasks is a key reason why they hold respectable positions.
We don’t look up to them based on what they could have done but rather on what they have already done and are currently doing. A coding wizard is only as useful as the code they write. A music savant is only as inspiring as the music they produce.
It Keeps Track of Your Personal Development
Proper task management involves keeping a record of what you have done, chronicling your accomplishments, no matter how small.
With a proper system, you can have a quick snapshot of the major projects completed across the year, regardless of whether they are personal or professional.
Looking back, you might find that you have accomplished a lot. These are projects that you can include in your resume or LinkedIn profile.
Perhaps you were busy completing them, and you never had the chance to step back, review your progress, and bask in the afterglow of your hard work. Looking at the completed projects, perhaps you can reassure yourself, “Yeah, it’s about time I take that vacation that I deserve.”
Conversely, task management might also show your pockets of time where you struggled with productivity. Perhaps you were struggling with stress and mental health at that point in time. Or perhaps the gap doesn’t indicate anything because you forgot to document your tasks.
Regardless, having visibility over these achievements can inspire further personal and professional growth because they are a form of a reward system.
Apps like Todoist have a karma system that shows how many tasks you have completed. Sunsama and Akiflow have a daily review feature that helps you reflect on completed tasks from the day before.
Just completing tasks you’re responsible for shouldn’t be treated as the status quo but as tiny achievements that deserve to be rewarded. Not many people can stay motivated and complete tasks in a consistent, deliberate manner. Task management systems help make that possible.
Final Thoughts
Many people dislike managing their tasks, believing that it is a chore or a burden. I view it as a reliable assistant, informing me of important matters so that I can focus on experiencing and enjoying my personal life or the craft of my work.
You can view task management as:
Sharpening an axe to help you cut down faster.
A quest marker in video games telling you where you need to go so that you won’t get lost in the open world.
A diary - an extension of who you are by documenting what you do, which makes you… you.
If you haven’t set up a task management system yet, I highly recommend giving it a go - perhaps for a week or so. You might be surprised at how something so trivial can have a profound impact on your day-to-day life.
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CoThinking
productivity
October 15, 2023
Guide to Being a New Manager: Alignment
Oct 15, 2023
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Being recruited as a first-time manager can be both exciting yet uncomfortable.
The prospects of higher pay and benefits come at the expense of more responsibilities and an extended notice period. But the real challenge lies in managing higher expectations from your employers, new colleagues, and mainly yourself.
Externally-hired managers get called upon when there are significant problems that need solving or gaps that need filling. It’s likely that internal promotions weren’t a feasible option. Most newly hired managers are also pre-qualified, whether through recommendations by mutual friends or freelance consultants turned full-timers.
Hence, managers are treated slightly differently from executives. Even if it’s your first time, managers are expected to know what to do and how to do it from the get-go. You manage others on top of being managed; You follow company rules, but are also the one making them now.
It’s undoubtedly more freedom than being an executive. But I had jobs in the past that gave ample freedom—being a journalist and freelancer. This type of freedom is different. It feels heavier. Decisions have consequences, and they affect how my team spends eight hours of their lives every weekday.
It’s been about two years since I first became a manager, and I’ve had various wins and losses along the way. But still, it’s a fantastic job—getting thrown off into the deep end and getting paid to learn how to swim.
I’ve just entered a new firm, similarly tasked with setting up a department from scratch. In the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing what I know. Here is part one of a series and my priorities for the first month.
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Step 1: Alignment
Doing nothing is unproductive, but to do the wrong thing is counter-productive.
I had coffee chats with business owners before, and a common concern they have is a new manager’s tendency to overhaul the entire department—Like newly-elected politicians upending whatever their predecessors have established.
I understand where they’re coming from. It’s the first day at a new job; you’re brimming with enthusiasm, and there’s an urgency to turn this energy into something, or anything really. This usually comes in the form of reckless initiatives.
However, this burst of enthusiasm is also thinly veiled insecurities—the eagerness to impress others and to prove that this hiring decision wasn’t a mistake.
I had to remind myself that, although everyone expects some level of change, significant disruptions can be damaging. I need to trust that the probationary period is sufficient time to prove I am capable. Plus, setting a high bar from the get-go will only set me up for burnout down the road.
What’s the worst that could happen? It’s unlikely that the management team will fire me, even if I did a less-than-mediocre job.
Fortunately, I didn’t have a predecessor to disrupt. Both times I was hired, the marketing department was non-existent, and I needed to build from scratch. Changes are mostly met with suspicion rather than resistance.
However, I’m still new at the job after all. This high level of energy still needs to be directed somewhere. Instead of seeking to do, a new manager should first seek to understand.
🔍 Getting an Overview
The first step involves plugging up any knowledge gaps and assumptions that you have about the company. This alone should distract you for a few days. For this, I love the three main frameworks taught in the YCDP programme.
Business Model Canvas
Who are our clients and stakeholders? Where do we earn money, and how do we spend it? What exactly are the relationships that we have with the client?
Usually, we would learn aspects of the business through osmosis over a lengthy period. But when your job in the first month involves making plans for the rest of the year, we have to speed up the process, and a BMC is an excellent tool for that.
Full Guide / Download Template
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Value Proposition Canvas Vpc
Without a value proposition, there will simply be no demand for your product, and the company will cease to exist. Whether you’re in marketing or product development, a VPC helps you understand what features and aspects of the business are essential to the client.
Most of all, it helps with prioritisation. Being a marketer, it’s tempting to jump straight to selling product features and benefits. But perhaps you’ll learn that it’s actually the unique pricing and license structure that drives clients to purchase.
SWOT
A VPC helps you understand how your products match a client’s needs—but your company is not the only player in the game. A SWOT analysis needs no introduction, and it’s a great way to find out how your company stands compared to the competition. This helps you understand what are the anchors of the business and where the industry might go.
Full Guide / Download Template
✅ Validating Your Understanding
Now you’ve learnt the existence of these 3 frameworks, here’s how you use them.
Place the diagrams on a digital whiteboard. I personally use Miro.
Fill in the framework by making educated assumptions. Research public or internal company material if needed.
Schedule a meeting with relevant stakeholders, usually the boss and a few of your peers.
Make a presentation of your understanding of the product, company and industry. I recommend putting this as part of an agenda rather than having a dedicated meeting.
Aligning my understanding of the product, company and industry, and correct any misunderstandings.
Frankly, I really enjoyed this exercise, and so did the bosses. They are so often down in the trenches that they rarely see their company from a fresh, retrospective point of view.
Correcting any misunderstandings also opens up discussions of why they exist in the first place. Through this exercise, I’ve uncovered value propositions that were nowhere written on the company website, which is appalling.
Having these conversations also helps paint a clearer picture of my objectives—which are often unclear for new managers. For example, I learnt that large enterprises often purchase from more reputable B2B brands despite having worse value because decision-makers who bought them can avoid culpability. “If the best service provider in the world can’t get the job done—I can’t be faulted for choosing them.” Building marketing strategies around this buyer’s psychology would make my work more impactful and meaningful.
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