Productivity for the chaotic
I've struggled with discipline all my life and couldn't find much value in it.
Lately, however, I've accepted it as a means to my end.
So, here's what my productivity system looks like:
Task Management - I plan one day at a time and do not retain information in my head. I put tasks into my Todoist as they come. Todoist's calendar view is (currently) my homebase and all my other calendars sync with it.
Although far from perfect, Todoist is a pleasant piece of software to use. For fun, I use this free analytics plugin to analyze my activity patterns.Calendar - While I like Google Calendar, Todoist has more or less made it redundant for me.
Email - Good ol' Gmail with a split-panel view. Nothing else has stuck. Boomerang is a handy plugin to draft and track emails.
Browser - I like Vivaldi for its customizability and feature-set. I don't like it for the memory it consumes.
Note-taking - This part of my system remains fragmented. While ad-hoc lists such as travel packing and workout plans end up in Apple Notes, task-related notes are added to Todoist. Any meeting notes mostly reside in Granola. Previously, I've also used Vivaldi's native notepad to make running notes. Notion happens to be an afterthought, and experiments with tools such as Mem.ai did not stick.
Comms - Discord for work. Slack for a few active communities. Whatsapp for personal chats. Loom has been helpful at times. Happy to have left MS Teams behind.
Brainstorming - Whimsical is my preferred visual tool for brainstorming and Claude happens to be my choice in co-pilots. v0, Vercel, and Lovable seem promising for vibe coding. I end up miffed with freemiums/trial plans for most new tools. A few interesting leads: Wispr Flow, Chorus AI, Blaze, distill.fyi, Cora (tried and disabled).
I'll try to update this every once in a while.
See you the next time!