The past few months has really opened up a new level of productivity thanks to systems like Ultimate Brain and Getting Things Done. Using these tools, I’ve been able to develop better approaches for tackling tasks and projects. Effort is still needed, but I feel I spend less time thinking about what I should be working on. Instead, I determine that tasks ahead and work through them piece by piece.
Managing Momentum
My focus as of late has been on developing the systems for the future while testing the waters with smaller projects. Working with the seond brain, PARA, and GTD systems has been an ongoing effort of learning and optimizing the resources I have.
While the systems themselves have been a project, in order to really test them, I’ve been working through a DnD adventure to publish online. A goal of this blog is to implement systems to help me complete projects. I’ve tried to use the weekly posts to hold myself accountable, but that has only been effective working in the trial format.
In utilizing these systems, I feel I’m getting a lot more done. I don’t know if that’s because I’m noticing progress through project and task entries, or if I’m actually increasing my productive output. Either way, the mental boost I’ve been feeling in productivity has certainly been beneficial.
I’ve laid out plans for actually completing a variety of projects. The key now is to keep the momentum from this trial. As it comes to an end, I am curious to see how well I stick to utilizing this system.
Templates Simplify
One significant boon to my progress in these areas is Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Brain system. I merely mentioned the template in prior posts, but it really is what has been the catalyst for my use of PARA and GTD.
He made major efforts to create a Notion template that pushed these two systems to their limits and exceeded them both. I’ve been following Thomas for several years now and have followed his productivity recommendations from time to time. It was only in the release of this template that I really felt like I was taking part in something novel.
Figuring out how to take the template he made as is and work it into my day to day has been a cornerstone of the last two months. Just this week, I’ve been working on a way to combine the ease of use of the to-do app I use, TickTick, with the depth of Ultimate Brain/GTD, but haven’t quite been able to get the seamless feel I was hoping for. We can add that to the project list.
Finding Ideas
Something I’ve been thinking a lot this week is where ideas for systems like these come, and I’m lucky to have accumulated a series of quality resources. One more than any other helps me get a quick understand of the most important ideas of books, that is Blinkist.
The service offers summaries of a large lbrary of nonfition books. I’ve been waiting on an actual copy of Getting Things Done from the library for weeks now, but after listening to the “blinks” I don’t know if I’ll actuall read the whole book. The coverage of ideas gets right to the meat of the text.
I’m reading through Tiago Forte’s brand new book on the Second Brain and while I’m enjoying it, there is a lot of text for marginal gains. A lot of what is in the book, I’ve already covered through posts and videos. There are certainly a new ideas, but I’m spending a lot more time reading through already tredded ground.
This brings me to what I’ll be doing next, as alas this is the last post for the GTD trial. In utilizing Blinkist, I came across the book, The Four Pillar Plan by AUTHOR. The ideas in the book weren’t anything new or groundbreaking, but I enjoyed the framing of the four critical areas:relaxation, diet, movement, and sleep. The lattermost of those has long been on my list of trials to “correct” and in coming across this lens, I’ll be spending time over the next month in touching up each of these areas, starting of course with sleep.
Trying Out Before Buying In 