Ask HN: How do you organize everything you want to do?

I've been struggling with GTD for years. It's obviously a thoughtful system, but it's hard to implement the advice of not getting nerdy about it. It's easy to fall in love with tools.

But lately I've been having more success and I like the story I've generated around it. I'd suggest you implement GTD slowly, in stages, to combat anxieties that you have. In combating an anxiety you need to recognize it, implement a solution, and recognize how that anxiety is relaxed... and replaced with a new layer of them!

Anxiety 1: lack of trust in yourself to do what needs to be done.

This was for me the baseline ambient anxiety. I had originally solved it by abandoning most todo list systems and even calendars so that I could organically ask myself regularly: "what is the most important thing right now". That was a good practice, but many things "slipped through the cracks".

The first practice of GTD is to have a single, "global unified inbox". As I decided to implement this I realized I had collections of half-measure "inboxes" all throughout my life: email, partial todo lists, memory cues, people I relied upon to remind me of things.

So I cleaned that all up as much as I could and funneled it into a single todo list and kept uncovering more of these secret reminders I was keeping for myself. The result was a relaxation of this anxiety through building trust that I was at least adequately in control of _finding_ and _capturing_ the things to do. From that you can build trust that you won't let things slip because you forgot.

Anxiety 2: there's too much to do and I can't handle it

This anxiety was often hiding underneath the first. In times of emergency I could get things done, but without that focusing my needs and furnishing energy... I'd just let things slip and lie to myself that it was "ok, because important things will come up again". This was true, but a half-measure and one that stole from me conscious control of my life.

So the second practice is "organize" and in particular the compelling notion of the "next action". Organize says "regularly look at your commitments and think about how best to think about them" and the practice of next actions says "for any commitment, know exactly what the next, simple, tangible, visible step you could take is".

For instance, I need to get my car emissions inspection updated. I'd sat on that for months because it was both buried in a listing of "car stuff" and was also sort of a big, mildly important thing that was easy to defer. I chose to reorganize it to my "weekly chores" list which I respect as something to review regularly, especially on the weekends, as a mechanism to keep my life healthily managed.

I also chipped off a next action: "research locations for emissions inspections and their times". With this step I located one nearer to me that I had never known before—reducing the activation energy. I got stuck again with my next action "drive there and do the inspection" because I don't drive that frequently. It felt like it was still a "next action" as I saw it as immediately doable with the closer location, but I reorganized it to be on my "list of things to do next time I get in my car" list it became very natural. I also made a note to bring a book so I could resolve the anxiety of sitting there bored waiting.

So organization helps you create systems to manage and encounter your commitments and the design of next actions helps you tactically erode anxieties which keep you from moving forward. It all boils down to "intentional planning" in a lightweight way.

Anxiety 3: this all takes too much time and I'm slipping

This is something close to where I am now. Relaxing the first two anxieties has already been a big step, though. Here, I am realizing that I have to reconnect with the notion of "letting go". If my system is too big for me to handle it then I'm either (a) not investing enough time in what's truly important in my life or (b) trying to have my cake and eat it too.

Automation and schedule can help. I collect regularly, organize daily, and review lists on weekly, biweekly, or monthly schedules. Omnifocus helps with this by making the schedules something I can forget about and rely on the system to handle.

But what also helps is recognizing things that are just aspirational projects and launching them off into the future as opposed to hanging on to them and feeling a little regular guilt as I choose to do something else instead. My attention and energy are limited—I need to be thoughtful about what projects I am truly engaged with.

"Snoozing" big ideas is another practice to eliminate this anxiety, but the latter one seems more important. With limited bandwidth, I have to be conscious about what I really want to achieve and, finally, choose actively to focus my energy there.

To some degree I feel this is the ultimate aim of any "system".

I do something very similar but I use a Trello board with columns like these. Specifically:

- Daily

- Weekly

- Monthly

- [YEAR] Completed

I like Trello because the cards support checklists, due dates, and comments which are great features for promoting habits associated with getting stuff done. Some cards are recurring (getting moved from monthly or weekly to daily column), others are finishable. I take a small but real pleasure in moving cards between columns and especially getting things over into the annual completed column.

One note on the due dates: I don't use due dates as deadlines. I use them as "check in on this no later than" dates. For me, the distinction is critical.

I use Google Keep. The tool doesn't matter much. You can even use a pen and paper.

Thanks a lot for the answer.

Do you have a routine to (re)visit your plans and see if you're on the right track? Do you even have a concept of the wrong track under this system?

How does your work time, according to the `todo`, fare against leisure time? Is it similarly scheduled, or does it come whenever the work hours have been accomplished?

Do you ever miss your goals during the hours of work? What do you do if that happens?

I have tried GTD and but it didn’t feel quite right for me. I believe the best system is the one that is tweaked to your life circumstances, and that changes over time. I’ve settled on the following system for now

- quarterly goals in a google doc. Every once in a while I review them and mark it green if it’s done, yellow if I’m working on it and red if it’s not going to happen. I do a new one for next quarter at the end of every quarter

- day to day in google keep. Here I use labels to categorise. I have a “who” label and a “what” label. Let’s say I’m working on a project with John. If I have a meeting with John I’ll write notes if I have to remember anything and a list of what needs to be done, then label it John and Project Name. Using this system, I can go quickly review what needs to be done on a project across the whole team, and also I can review what I’m doing with John for a 1 on 1.

Important notes or lists get Pinned, and I archive stuff once it’s no longer relevant.

- I use my calendar to prioritise. Every night before bed I take a look at my calendar for the next day and have a look what my priorities are and plan my day.

- shopping list in the google assistant shopping list

- things that need to be brought to my attention at a certain time or place go in my phone reminders