1st dilemma: paper vs tech Paper pros:
- gives me a break from screens
- if I write a to-do list on a memo I can throw it away when I’m done and it doesn’t exist anymore :) It feels good to me.
- helps me “visualize” things better. If I start making random lists and write down ideas I find it easier to make connections
Tech pros:
- Not wasting paper and money!
- People wouldn’t be able to read my stuff
- Easier for me to write something down if I’m out.
- would allow me to take notes on whatever (ideas, casual notes during daily life, reading notes) and have it all in one place, I can’t carry on hundreds of notebooks
So I’m probably more about going all tech…
But here’s what I need, more or less:
- daily routine, I don’t want to keep writing it down over and over
- visual tracking of my daily tasks. I want to see what I’ve done.
- casual things that have to be done: laundry, cleaning, going to the vet
- lists: grocery, things I need to buy someday…
- don’t want to make a mess with these lists though… When I’m done I want to delete those tasks.
I’ve been using Notion and Tweek for a while. Notion only for note taking, in the simplest way possible because I really don’t want to spend time trying to understand how to use templates and other features, if I find useful ones along the way I’m good with that. Probably will leave it at that. Tweek: I loved how simple it is and how it makes you make lists for every day of the week, has a calendar view too and lets you add some other lists too. But I have to write my daily tasks over and over… Also I feel like I loose track of it, I can’t view the progress in a visual way.
You’ll almost certainly need both paper and electronic solutions, because you’ll remember stuff when you don’t have paper handy. If you can get ideas out of your head quickly, that tends to help more than having the right medium available.
I like using paper for scribbling things down while working on a task, but then my phone and computer for almost everything else. And if I have something on paper that I haven’t finished, I either move it into Todoist or throw it away.
I’m an old index card person, so I love ripping up completed task lists. It feels very therapeutic to me.
What apps and programs do you use?
- Todoist for projects and tasks
- Standard Notes or Obsidian for notes or temporary lists
I prefer to have one authoritative database of tasks (Todoist) and then I use whatever plain text or Markdown tools are available to me in the moment for short term lists. I have settled on Standard Notes for longer term/reference notes, but I could just as easily use anything with plain text files.
thank you! :)
Electronic doesn’t work for me, notifications and even the act of unlocking the phone distract me. Pen and paper bullet journal are what have worked best for me. If there’s anything I need to remember while I’m out, I text it to my wife, because I’ll recheck that messaging thread throughout my day.
I used Taskwarrior, it’s pretty good and simple. Instead of paper you can use one of those cardboard whiteboards.
But I always just send up going back to using paper.
