Meta

Background: I’m a naturally productive person; I don’t struggle with myself to get work done.[1] Over the years, I’ve gradually built up a system to be even more productive. I’ve been asked by my family and friends how I do it. At this point, it has become worth my time to write up an overview, both to save my time in explaining the basics, and to potentially reach a wider audience.

Disclaimer: to avoid writing this in the tone of a self-help guide, I’ve kept this as an overview of my system, not as a guide to walk people through implementing it. Most people who are interested tend to contact me directly for advice. Even then, my system will not be perfect for everyone. It may not even be close to what works best for others. This is what works for me, and I’m sharing it in case it helps those who come across it.

Contents

Focus: the rule of 3
Daily habits
—Agenda: table & time blocking
Long term organization
—Calendar: infrequent/unique events
Long term outlook
—Document: roadmap of goals
Processes
—Reflection: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly
Other habits
—2 minute rule
—Write everything down: make a to-do list
—Inbox zero
—Pomodoro

Begin

To get things done, I narrow down my tasks into 3 categories. This provides my brain with organization, and a framework from which I can focus. Any more than 3, and I lose my ability to focus.

I got this idea from an interview with a female general.[2] When asked how she got things done faster and better than everyone else in the room, she replied: I make a list of things I need to do, in order of importance. I go down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Then I cross off everything past number 3.

This resonated with me. Choosing 3 categories doesn’t have the effect of limiting my ambition or scope. Instead, it organizes my goals such that I can focus my attention.

Here’s a concrete example: as a student, during the academic year, my 3 categories are Projects, Classes, and Exercise. I let these 3 categories guide what I focus on within my daily, weekly, and monthly planning.

I break down Classes by, unsurprisingly, each course that I’m taking. Within each course, I keep track of tests, assignments, reading, etc. The nature of Projects is less strictly defined than Classes. Dividing Projects into subtasks requires more flexibility, based on what line of thought I’m pursuing. Similarly to Classes, though, I focus on giving myself clear tasks and deadlines. Exercise is kind of my catch-all category. It includes my plan for running each week, and also doing things like laundry, cleaning, and shopping.

Sound confusing? It isn’t—at least, not when it’s organized properly. This brings me to the next point: containers of content. The 3 categories are the content; after figuring those out, the most important thing is how I organize them.

Here, my main tool is my Agenda. It’s basically a table, with a few extras that I’ll touch on later. I use the table to organize the content that I just described. I start with my 3 broad categories in separate rows, and all in the left column. Then, I open up some more columns to the right. I break down each category into a smaller subset, and then into specific tasks, and then into deadlines and time estimates. Below, I’ve made an example to help you visualize this.

(Note on the example of a table: don’t worry if the content doesn’t make sense to you. It’s written in my shorthand, with my particular preferences (e.g. ordering tasks from bottom to top, and right to left; the reverse of typical formats). The purpose is to demonstrate the idea of going from broad to narrow, and organizing the rule of 3.)

This table is really the main thing that makes the rule of 3 work. At a glance, I can see everything that is going on in my life. I see a roadmap of what day to complete it, and how long it may take. Notice that some tasks don’t have time estimates—those are the ones that are so routine that I can predict the time without needing to include it.

Also, the days that I put are not the deadlines for the tasks, but rather when I want to finish them. I find that deadlines don’t help with procrastination—if I see that I have something due in 4 days, then great, but when will I do it? Putting the time to finish, rather than the time it’s due, is far more useful for going from thought to action.[3]

The table is just one part of the Agenda, though. The other part of the Agenda is also essential: it’s the time blocking. Cal Newport has written a great article on time blocking. If you don’t want to read that one, no problem, I’ll describe my way of time blocking in detail here. Time blocking, as Newport’s title says, is “planning every minute of your work day.”

I time block because I hate to waste any minute of the day that I could use to accomplish something. I find that, if I don’t have a plan down to the 10 minute resolution, I inevitably lose huge chunks of my day. That time just dissipates into the air. Time blocking also helps me to focus solely on the task that I’ve planned to do. Instead of worrying about the 10 other things I need to get done, I can glance at my time blocked schedule, and know that I will accomplish it all.

Okay, awesome, so how do I actually make a time blocked schedule? Here’s an example:

Now I can discuss the details of time blocking. When I make a time blocked schedule, I draw from the table. This is why the table and the time block go in the same file. I start by putting the immovable things: classes. Then, around those times, I start filling in the gaps with work. I almost visualize a drag and drop in my head.

The table and the schedule really do go together perfectly. When I put days into my table, I keep in mind the following: 1) the deadline, and 2) how mentally taxing the task is. I make sure to balance my days with work that I know I can handle—that way, I can accomplish everything faithfully.

The time blocking, as I discussed earlier, is what keeps me on track, focused, and feeling in control. It does, however, take a lot of practice to be able to accurately predict the time it will take to do something. My success with time blocking rests on two forms of trust. While I’m making my schedule, I have to trust the future me to work hard and follow through. When I’m doing my work, the present me has to trust the judgment of the past me, and trust that I can indeed accomplish all the work. This trust rests on a past history of success, and the ability to plan realistically.

Now that I’ve gotten more detailed, down to the day, I’ll back up and start zooming out to see the bigger picture. This brings me to my second tool: the Calendar. This is very straightforward. I use the Calendar to keep track of tasks that are not part of my typical routine. Things like when I wake up, when I go to class, and when I eat, are all pointless to put on the Calendar. All they do is clutter things up.

Instead, I put things like meetings with professors, guest talks, exam dates, and large project deadlines on my Calendar. I also use the Calendar to keep track of things that happen loosely periodically, like changing my contact lenses. Basically, if it’s not a specific task I need to keep track of on my Agenda, nor a recurring/daily event, then it goes on the Calendar. That way, the atypical event stands out and catches my attention, whenever I glance at my Calendar.

Beyond the Calendar, the most long term tool I have in my arsenal is the Document. The Document requires the most reflection, and thoughtful planning, of any of the tools I’ve discussed so far. That’s because the Document is the roadmap of my dreams, goals, and plans.

To make the Document, I start by asking myself, “What are my terminal goals?” These are the things I want, regardless of how I’m going to get them. Then I ask, “What are my long term wants?” These are things that I can foresee working on for the next several years. My long term wants push me in the direction of my terminal goals. Unlike terminal goals, long term wants are not desirable for the sake of doing/accomplishing, but long term wants are also much, much bigger than short term wants. The short term wants are the things I’m working toward in the time span of months. They are how I get to my long term wants: accomplishing one short term want at a time.

I first made a Document because every month—or even every week—I would have a crisis.[4] I would “realize” all over again that, oh no, I’m 17 and I haven’t done anything with my life. I have dreams, gorram it![5] Big dreams! And what am I doing with my life? Focusing on this tiny little task, which has nothing to do with fixing the world at all.

With the Document, I can mostly put an end to these unproductive thought cycles. By walking through my life goals, starting from the top, and going all the way down to what I’m doing on a monthly/weekly basis, I can see how everything I work on fits in to the bigger picture. Instead of getting frustrated with why I’m spending hours on a task, I can see how it’s an essential part of improving and climbing to where I want to be.

This is a perfect time to talk about the processes that make this system of tools function smoothly. Reflection and updating are essential to any of this working. On a daily basis, I review my time blocked schedule, and take note of whether I accomplished things or not. Then, I construct my time block schedule for the next day. I also update my table inside my Agenda, deleting the things I finished, and adding new assignments. (This daily process is what the “journal” task on my time blocking example refers to.)

On a weekly basis, I do a little bit more than my daily reflection. I go over some bigger things I want to accomplish—this is when I focus on things more like vision, rather than details. For example, on a daily basis, I’ll figure out what school assignments are due, and what to do next in my program. Weekly, I’ll think about what direction I want to take the program in, and what tasks I should be thus focusing my attention on.

On a monthly basis, I check back to see how I’m doing along the Document. I make sure that I still agree with my short term wants, and that those fulfill my long term wants. Usually, this is just a quick glance, to assure myself that no crisis is necessary. Occasionally, I will actually change the Document. This doesn’t take any agonizing over—I just change it when I see a reason to.

For the weekly and monthly reflection, those don’t actually happen on a scheduled day. It feels more like I’m always running the meta process in the background—I just don’t always pay attention to it, because doing so would prevent me from getting any real work done. So, loosely once a week or month, I’ll let myself take care of the upkeep.

In the same vein, I don’t try to do something deliberately on a yearly basis. Nevertheless, something big always happens every year. Not all at once, but as a slow build up to significant changes, which are apparent when I look back. I attribute this to mental attitude more than anything else. I have a strong aversion to settling or plateauing. Every time I feel my progress—academic, personal, or other—start to stall, I look for ways to change that. Inspiration and invigoration are important to me.

Now that I’ve gotten the bulk of the system out of the way, I want to talk about some smaller habits that are more like “lifehacks” or “tips” than anything else in my arsenal.

2 minute rule: if I can get something done in less than 2 minutes, I do it now. I don’t email it to myself to do later, or assume that I’ll remember it—I just get it out of the way, and out of my mind.

Write everything down: I want my brain to be a processing unit, not memory storage. If I’m trying to keep track of 15 tabs of a to-do list, I’ll never focus and get any work done. I also won’t accomplish any of the to-do list, because I’ll have lost it! I just add everything to my Agenda as I think of it, and then fit it into my schedule later, when I do my drag and drop planning. (To clarify: I make my to-do list a part of my Agenda. However, when I program, I do maintain a TODO.txt file.)

Inbox zero: this works well with the two habits above. I strive to keep my inbox empty. As I receive email, I either take action, or put it in the appropriate folder. If it falls under the 2 minute rule, then I take care of it immediately. If it requires no action, but I need to keep track of it, I keep it in a pinned folder called Reference. If it requires no action, and I don’t need it handy, I put it in whatever other folder it belongs. If it requires action, but the 2 minute rule does NOT apply, then I leave it in the inbox. I add whatever associated task there is to my to-do list on my Agenda, and I take care of it at the right time.

Pomodoro: set a timer. Do 25 minutes of work, then take a 5 minute break. It sounds simple, but it works amazingly well. For the few tasks that I cannot do without procrastinating, e.g. reading an uninteresting textbook, Pomodoro is the only way I can stay on track. I think it works well because, when I know I just have to get through 25 minutes, my brain can stay motivated. It’s long enough to get some work done, but short enough to steel my resolve and push through. However it works, it locks my attention on my work every time.

Notes

[1] This is due to my perfectionism, which is indeed a blessing and a curse. It has given me enormous benefits in getting things done, but it’s also insanely easy for me to get tunnel vision. I tend to get narrow minded in pursuing a task—in the past, this has been schoolwork. Unsurprisingly, focusing so much on schoolwork put me in a sort of “death spiral” of pointlessness and unhappiness. The full account on how I overcame this tunnel vision is a topic for another post.

[2] My memory is fuzzy, though, so I do not have the article to cite. Also, my account of her words is approximated from memory.

[3] You might be noticing oddly capitalized or bolded words by this point. Capitalized words are so that the things I refer to constantly, e.g. tools like Agenda or concepts like Projects as a member of the 3 categories, stick out. Bolded words—focus and action—are the ones that I assign a lot of weight to in my mind.

[4] I say crisis, but we could probably quibble about this wording. People around me don’t usually notice, for what that information is worth.

[5] A reference to Firefly, which I may love too much.