In the current “information economy”, productivity is usually the optimization objective of many “knowledge workers”. I define productivity as the quality of producing a lot of (meaningful) outcome at work given a fixed amount of resources (usually time).
Aspects of productivity
time management: with todolist and calendar apps and techniques
mind mangament: with how to nuture suitable environments and mood for maximal productivity
information management: with note taking apps and techniques
My experiment
It happened over my last 4 years of college.
Tried out all type of tools. Some worked, most did not, but that is not the main lesson.
Maybe the optimization objective is not on productivity, but the real knowledge.
Methods
I tried the following things over the span of 4 years
Tried 3+ calendar tools – Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, a daily checklist on paper, calendar.com, etc.
Tried 4+ todolist tools – Todoist, Google Tasks, Google Keep, checklists on paper/Notion, etc.
Tried 6+ note-taking tools – Obsidian, Notion, paper, Google Keep, Sublime Text, vim, etc.
Read 5 books on productivity
10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades
Mind Management
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
How to take smart notes: one simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking: for students, academics and nonfiction book writers
During these trials, I wrote field notes everywhere (because I have 6+ note-taking apps). Eventually, I looked back at the notes to pick out patterns.
Results (or Patterns seen in my field notes)
Although I felt I have much more experience in productivity than my younger self, I still feel pretty clueless of “the best” productivity “system” just for me.
Before the start of college, I was wondering about (1) how should I use the apps to plan and record my life, (2) how my day should look like. Now, I am still wondering the same questions. A consolation might be that the questiosn are now more specific.
My preferences so far
I like mapping the world (like some domain’s knowledge, my thoughts, etc.) in a hierarchical way (a tree) because that (1) works most of the time (like this blog) and (2) easy to type on a computer.
I always look for the simplest but optimal solution to these tooling problem because I believe tooling is a distraction to real work.
I think mindset, discipline, and environment are the three most important factors of productivity.
I cannot work without knowing both the short-term and long-term plan. Planning eases the mind, even though I am not sure if planning directly matters in the production of insights. I think curiosity and creativity matter more.
Discussion
Todo lists and calendars are concerned with two (in many) different dimensions of a human life.
The first dimension is time, taken care by calendars. If managing your calendar well, you can possible stop worrying about deadlines (which are artificial) and start enjoying the knowlege in your work. Calendar apps are great inventions that help workers in capitalism worry less about time.
The second dimension is work progress, taken care by todo lists. If managing your todo lists (or other forms of planners like kanban boards and timelines) well, you can stop worrying about not making progress and start the opposite. You will feel much validated, your confidence will be boosted, and real success may come to you.
These two “dimensions” might not be orthogonal. Time might induce progress and vice versa.
Notes have two different purposes
To help putting our (usually complicated) thoughts into visually tangible objects. This is as important as hard drive to the computer. Our brain is just RAM (working memory) with a bit of hard drive (past memories). Taking notes helps us pivot to the next thoughts from those written down.
To be a historical record of our thoughts. That can be thought as diaries, which is emotional, or knowledge base, which is intellectual.