In Hindsight, 1980s Analog Productivity Was Awesome

Can the same principles cross over to the digital world?

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As a young uni student¹ in the mid 1980s, I seem to have been unconsciously, effortlessly organised — according my rose-coloured memory of times past, at least!

I knew what and when things needed to happen, and for the most part, they did. My paper-based productivity system wasn’t perfect, but it was simple, effective, and didn’t get in the way of actually getting things done.

Granted, life pre marriage, children, and running a business was simpler than post, but the system I used ran on principles that hold true no matter how complicated life became.

The Ingredients

My system consisted of 5 main elements:

• A cheap A4 hard cover notebook
• An A3 pad of translucent layout paper, something like this
• A set of clear folders for organising projects
• The cheapest A5 student diary I could find (usually around $1.50)
• A3 sheets of paper drawn up for timeblocking (one per week), from a hand-drawn template which I’d make copies of as needed

The Recipe

A4 hard cover notebook