Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. — Alfred North Whitehead
Your own life advances by extending the number of important operations which you can perform without thinking about them.
What to systematize
What are some operations which we can systematize?
Paying bills
Sleep and wake times
Daily Planning
Studying procedures
Work procedures
Organizing Information and research
Food choices
Exercise programs
Email handling
Clothing choices
Cleaning the house
I’m sure you can think of more.
Systematize the stuff that’s important, but boring to you.
10 Tools to Help You Implement Systems
You don’t have to make the next all-encompassing personal productivity system. Take something that’s already been built and apply it to your own life.
Here are some frameworks and tools you can work from:
Every day write down your Most Important Tasks
Setup a Morning Routine
Put every appointment into your calendar app
Inbox Zero your email
Automate your bills
Plan your meals for the week, and when you’re going to cook them
Plan your life on different time scales (Daily, Weekly, Quarterly, 25 years)
Organize your research in a Notetaking App
Setup a Task Planning system– GTD / ZTD / The Agile Way
Pick one of these and implement it. Don’t look for the holy grail of systems, pick something simple that works. Your system doesn’t need to be perfect, or cover every edge case. Improve on it later if you need to.
Further Reading
A Daily Planning System - How I plan my days with Todoist and Google Calendar
Gateless - Systems improve your ‘Capacity’ and make you more valuable
Work Clean - Mise-en-place for your work
Getting Things Done - The OG task planning system
Zen To Done - An incremental approach for those who find GTD too complicated
The Agile Way - For those who find GTD outdated or too reactive