Get productive with Super Simple Draw — daily planner
At work, I found that productivity can be improved by having a planner: start one in the morning, stick to it throughout the day, and review it before I go home. It minimizes distractions, helps me to choose an optimized sequence, and whenever I cross off a task that’s done, it gives an extra boost in mental energy to move forward.
I’ve tried doing that in note-taking apps (many of them supports to-do lists, e.g. Dropbox Paper, Google Keep, Apple Notes), and lighter weight task management tools (e.g. Trello, coda.io). I found that whatever tool I use, if I stick to it, it kinda works, and the day gets more productive.
But the caveat is: if I can stick to it.
Often times, I felt a little too lazy to start the plan, and then just went on with the free moving mode — hopping from one random thing to another, reactively dealing with incoming requests, and losing sight of the bigger picture.
That’s when I realized the mental cost of planning. Prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain for executive functioning) operations are expensive. Sometimes there is the right thing to do, but people tend to fall back to the easier things. The anecdotes for that: (1) reduce the barrier, (2) make it fun.
Super Simple Draw kinda solves both. It’s really easy: just start writing items on the blank page. It is not designed to be an organizer to keep everything forever in files and folders, but that is exactly the point: most likely you won’t need to save the todo lists on a daily level, so without feeling obliged to keep it can remove the barrier to get started.
Then it’s the fun part: with Super Simple Draw, it’s easy to pick different colors, write texts in whatever size, font, or direction (tree, mind mapping, pinboard style, etc), and add any quick drawings as visual cues so you can respond to it faster. Starting from a blank space, you have complete freedom to design the most creative layout.
And nothing has to be perfect, the handwriting, the drawing, or the completion of the plan. Since it’s just for a day anyway. And if you do it every day, you will gradually get better and better. So, just give it a try!
