Be a Productivity Scientist + Digital Spring Cleaning

Welcome to the Boldly Productive Newsletter!

This week we'll take a look at the next principle in FIRST, Iterate. This is where you begin to craft your perfect productivity system by running experiments to improve your system over time.

I've undertaken some Spring Cleaning in my digital spaces that will be ongoing for a couple weeks. This week's focus was on my task manager, Things 3.

The next app I'll be tidying up is my notes app, Obsidian, so I've been taking a look at how others are using the app to generate ideas. I've included a couple of the resources I've found in this week's Read/Watch List.

Let me know what you think about this week's newsletter by giving a thumbs up or leave a comment below. Your feedback is appreciated!

Iterate: Craft Your Perfect Productivity System One Piece at a Time

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own”
-- Bruce Lee

In the last article in this series on Focus, we discovered why you need a productivity system based on who you want to be and what you'd like to do in the future. With the next principle, Iterate, you start to get into the action.

As Walt Disney said:

"The best way to get started is to stop talking and begin doing!"

So let's get to work building your productivity system!

Digital Spring Cleaning Part 1: Things 3

It’s easy when using digital tools to end up with a lot of extra stuff lying around. It’s necessary to sort through the digital clutter from time to time. The start of Spring seemed a good time to do this.

First up is my task manager, Things 3.

I began by evaluating my Areas, or top level lists. I’ve been feeling they're a bit too granular. I figured out which Areas had only a few tasks in them and combined them with others. This got me from 9 Areas down to 6.

Read / Watch List:

Notes and ideas from others to explore

Video: PRODUCTIVELY Learning New Things Using Obsidian
Along with spring cleaning in Things, I've also been doing some tidying up in [Obsidian]. I'm using the plugin mentioned in this video (Spaced Repetition) to help me develop a better review system for my notes. More on that next week!

Article: Everything I wish I knew when starting to use Obsidian
This article is much more wordy than it needs to be, and to be honest, I didn't read most of it. I merely skimmed through to find the lessons he shared. There were some good insights on how to approach note taking in Obsidian, namely keeping individual notes to one main idea and allowing the structure to grow organically. This has been helpful as I'm taking the time to spruce up my Obsidian vault this week.

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