I have been building my digital systems for years now and over time, a set of principles have emerged. I want to share them with you today.
Being conscious of these principles helps me not get distracted by every single new tool on the market because they’ve helped me learn what I like. They also mean I can more critically analyse whether or not I need to try one based off its marketing pages, as I have a really clear idea of what my needs are, and enough experience of other apps to make comparisons on what has previously worked or not worked for me.
The big principle is:
Information where you need it, when you need it.
This just makes sense to me. Why wouldn’t I do this? This affects how I lay out my Notion homepage, how I organise my emails, even the kitchen posters I hang on my walls. Maybe this is implicit, but having it written out somewhere somehow allows me to actively commit to it.
To achieve this I have some other principles:
Reduce friction
There is a constant critical voice in my head saying “is this introducing friction?”, “how can I make this easier for myself?”, “what isn’t working here?”. This means my system is constantly improving because I am reducing friction.
