Open Q - organisational systems
Thursday, 12 February 2026 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwariumQuestion to moots and flyby visitors alike: how do you organise your life?! What do you use to track the myriad of sisyphean tasks that composite the human existence: chores, life admin, hobbies, social commitments and big events, side projects, reading lists, expense tracking and budgeting, journalling, article archiving, correspondance..... .... ..or perhaps do you just let go and speedrun raw.
I'm thinking about resetting some systems because items have been slipping off my mind into the ether. I'm currently looking at some kind of app for reoccurring tasks (ticktick / things 3 / microsoft to-do) and consolidating calendars, but would love to know what has worked, or not worked, for this corner of the internet.
Current profile:- digital systems: android phone + pc + OS + iOS
- journalling, planning, expense tracking, general list-making: pen and paper (jibun techo + leuchtturm)
- budgeting: excel
- thoughts dump, flash to-dos, gym notes: google keep
- holiday planning: google maps and google sheets
- hobby tracking: todoist but ineffective
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 06:53 am (UTC)MY TIME HAS COME. I THINK ABOUT LIFE ORGANISATION TECHNIQUES ALL THE TIME FOR FUN. IT'S MY HOBBY. no for real it really is haha
The ideal setup is really dependent on the individual and your needs and habits though. Generally I feel a good rule of thumb is to take stock of what you already naturally do and then build around it as much as possible, rather than try to introduce new organisational tools that just end up adding layers of friction.
The other good rule of thumb for me, at least, is that less is more haha. YMMV here—some people like to have everything in one godlike bucket of a life organisational app to rule them all, some people like discrete tools for specific things. I lean more towards the bucket end, though I know there are some things my bucket app can't do well so that's where other things come in.
My bucket app is Obsidian. It contains:
- journal (i make daily, weekly, monthly notes and a bigger yearly reflection note)
- life admin (notes on when I last replaced my doorbell batteries, warranty information, serial numbers, running list of things i ordered and am awaiting delivery for, notes from health checkups, how to press buttons in the right sequence to reset whatever devices, etcetc this sort of thing)
- notes on media (books, movies, butai, TV shows, short stories, articles i read online, podcast, whatever)
- thoughts (ideas that pop into my head, ideas i glean from things i read. for e.g. i have a note titled "Memory is preservation" and if I read a book/article that touches on that idea I might pull some quotes and chuck them in this note, or it might go into the book note and I link it here. I'm not really rigid about it)
- travel plans (one note per trip)
- notes on ongoing projects
- wishlists
- really anything else that needs to be recorded somewhere and doesn't fit anywhere else
I subscribe to the basic tier Obsidian sync (US$4/month) for cross-device access. it works very well, but I wanted to throw that out upfront in case you are not willing to pay for sync. There are other free solutions, the official sync is just the easiest to use.
EDIT TO ADD if Obsidian does not work for you, Capacities is my top rec for most people. You can get by just fine on their free tier and I find the way they organise objects very intuitive and powerful.
The things that do not go in Obsidian are:
- Tasks. I actually don't have a task app. All tasks go into my calendar on their own "Life admin" calendar. This is what I mean by building around tools you already use; I am already a very regular user/checker of my calendar, so if a task is in my calendar I will definitely see it. Even if a task has no date associated with it, I just throw it on the earliest free day in my calendar. If I don't want to do it that day I just move it around. But putting tasks on calendar ensure that I keep having to think about when I do them, if not they will perish in a "someday" graveyard.
- If the task is critically time sensitive and I MUST have a blaring alarm go off at a specific time, that gets set directly on my phone.
- Grocery lists: I just use Reminders on my phone cos I can look at it on my Apple Watch while I'm in the supermarket.
- Budgeting: I use Actual Budget, but I feel like there's no reason not to stick with your excel sheet if you like it. I'm just lazy to spreadsheet.
- Bookmarks and articles I might want to read later: I use Linkding, but I usually recommend Raindrop to anyone who doesn't want to futz with self-hosting (or pay for it on Pikapods).
- Actual read later: Wallabag, but I'd recommend Instapaper for most people who want a basic free alternative (that can also sync with your ereader). I only keep like 20 articles on Wallabag at any time so it doesn't become a black hole. When I clear them, I pluck another 20 from Linkding's unread pile. Usually, by this time, half the things I tossed into Linkding aren't interesting to me any more so I can cull them. I find this works very well to stop my read later from becoming a black hole.
- Article archiving for links I want to keep forever: Singlefile. Obsidian Web Clipper is also really good. I just don't personally like to have the full text of articles cluttering my Obsidian vault.
- TBR pile: Storygraph
Hope this gives you some ideas! VERY happy to discuss further, I love this stuff.
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 11:50 am (UTC)thank you for sharing!! gosh what a fun read. I DO have questions about housework!! Does that go in your calendar as well? I'm thinking about the switch up between day-to-day habits, to weekly cleans, to some things that you do quarterly or even annually (e.g. vacuuming vs changing your toothbrush) is it a moveable list? an army of individual tasks perfectly scheduled? +++ if your plans change (friend drops in for dinner), do you find it bothersome moving the tasks around to the next weekend?
I will go check out Wallabag and Linkding and raindrop and pikapods AND singlefile, those are sites/apps I've never even heard of so I'm so glad you took the time to refer them!!
hope you're having a good week friend!!
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 12:12 pm (UTC)Yes housework goes into the life admin calendar, exactly as you described! They are an army of individually scheduled recurring tasks. I don't really have daily things that I need to schedule cos I will naturally remember to do things when daily is their cadence, but change sheets, change toothbrush, wash bathmat, vacuum etc are all in there as recurring anywhere from weekly to quarterly. If my plans change, I can just move that one task to the next free timeslot without messing with the rest of the calendaring.
Because of all this the life admin calendar does look very crowded, so I don't keep it turned on all the time. But I am one of those people who has like a whole bunch of calendars (one for social meetups, one for fun things, one for health-related things, one that's just for miscellaneous things like 'make sure i'm at home at this time to receive parcel') so I'm used to toggling them on and off when I want to see them or not.
Raindrop is very good for bookmarking and read later! Singlefile is a browser extension that saves any page as... a single file... haha. I just save them into a folder of articles that is synced everywhere on my cloud storage. Pikapods, Wallabag and Linkding are like a whole other rabbit hole of selfhosted apps and I feel like it is more techy than most people need, but very interesting to learn about!
Perhaps I should have led with this question (I was too hype to talk about stuff), but what do you find is not working about your current system? Like where is the friction/slippage happening, I'm curious!
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 12:28 am (UTC)IT'S OKAY I WANT TO DO THE MARKET RESEARCH!!
Life has been inconsistent with big events in the last few years that threw my systems out of a loop, i.e. I drop everything to focus on getting that One Thing Done, and when it's over I realise everything else has been languishing (life admin, exercise, hobbies, everything on the important-not-urgent eisenhower square). Especially around holiday periods with frequent social events, I feel like I'm running life on blinkers only focusing on the Next Thing, that when I have free time, my mind blanks out as to what I'm supposed to be doing or even what I enjoy doing for rest! I don't mind the rush but I dislike that feeling of disassociation. And I've missed appointments recently which has /never/ happened before.
I want to be more mindful of my life and my habits. I'm thinking about creating a dashboard that lets me see, at a glance, what's on, what's coming up, and what's on my mind.
the tension points on the triangle are (1) wanting to minimising screentime esp phone time, (2) acknowledging that I use my phone a lot / phone is always there / phone can be used productively, and (3) avoiding gamification of tasks so that I learn to associate satisfaction with the task itself rather than the acknowledgement of completion an app gives me
A digital calendar might work! I've used google calendar/todoist in school and it worked because of the strict deadlines, but fell off in late uni because it became too hard to manage -> every morning was spent rescheduling to-dos. But perhaps the key is to be more intentional with what is scheduled and have seperate calendars for different items? Food for thought!!
no subject
Date: 14 February 2026 03:10 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing!! It sounds like you have been a bit swamped, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and venture a guess that actually your problem might not be that your current tools aren't working for you but that you simply have too much on your plate to humanly do in the time and energy that you have, like your problem isn't task management, it's energy management? I feel like when this happens the first thing to do is to take stock and subtract as much as you can rather than add on new tools to manage all the things. Are there obligations you can let go of rather than trying to squeeze them in?
I think it's also helpful to really try to clock how much time it takes you to do things cos often it's easy to underestimate this... for a long time I was frustrated with myself for never going to sleep on time, then I stopped to calculate how much time I actually need to do all the wind-down things I want to do (stretch, journal, brush teeth/skincare, read) and I found that I need to block out up to an hour for all this not to feel rushed. In my head, it took like 15-20 minutes, and I just wasn't allocating enough time. Obviously anyone can tell it does not actually take 15-20 minutes when looking at all these activities, but heads are weird.
Minimising phone usage is a whole other topic! Do you have thoughts/ideas for what you think would work best for you?
no subject
Date: 17 February 2026 02:24 am (UTC)I did play around with google calendar last weekend!! for me, it:
- works well locking down future tasks and events (e.g. blocking two weekends for sewing ahead of a con) - I like how this can declutter my to-do-list and yeet things which I don't need to be considering at this very moment. I've integrated with todoist (which is my somedays + hobby list) -> I stopped using todoist because the nature of the content just meant that I wasn't checking if often, leading to items being forgotten. Assigning priorities in todoist then setting a date for the high priority items AND linking it to google calendar is really useful!!
- works less well with daily or ongoing to-dos + time blocking. My sch is not regular and I need a lot of flexibility, so I find electric systems too fiddly. I also don't want to edit the calendar too often bc opening a big screen is always a slippery slope to emails/youtube/interesting essays/anything other than what I'm supposed to be doing
I did try google tasks but think it's too simple and restrictive for my uses - will stick to google keep :)
Re the crusade against phone usage! So many things!!
- have mandatory 10s timers before opening social media apps and websites + permanent timer for screen time
- track screen time + unlocks in my journal
- greyscale after 9:30pm
- all notifications off except text/calls
- physical alarm clock
As to what I should improve -> I still need better sleep hygiene and start winding down 2 hours before bed. It used to be 1 hour, but then I realised my brain just needs that long to calm down (especially if I'm writing fic!!). The main pain point is home time: if I go horizontal after coming home from work it's going to be doomscroll hours. I need to think about the physical habits surrounding phone time, so something to journal and reflect on in the future.
(what kind of things do you do lark? I always recall you were a regimented individual with a healthy work life balance! What helps you keep your habits?)
no subject
Date: 17 February 2026 11:11 am (UTC)I also do physical alarm clock and all notifications off! Also...
- Within texts/calls I also have it set up so that outside of work hours, only a tiny group of close friends and family will trigger notifications.
- I just don't have any socmed apps on my phone, I only access these sites on my computer.
- Last year I went a step further by deactivating my FB/IG accounts.
- I have a distraction blocker on all my devices set up to kick in after 8:30pm (I use Freedom, but there are lots) that blocks any distracting site for me.
I think I've been pretty successful at making my phone boring and dull, I hardly ever reach for it! I am most likely to stay up late gaming or going down rabbit holes reading about something online on my computer though. I tried blocking search engines in my distraction blocker but that was really way too restrictive cos I do sometimes legit need to search for something at night, but that leaves me susceptible to looking up some butai actor's body of work and then before I know it I've spent an hour reading trivia and magazine interviews with him. So yes I too feel the need for better sleep hygiene, and I think figuring out exactly how long I need to wind down was important so I can be realistic 😔
I do think my brain naturally tends towards regimented and needing my calendar to be very orderly and manageable, so that helps with the balance without me needing to try very much. I have consciously picked a job where the calendar is so predictable I can commit to holidays a year in advance cos I know my busy periods, and I have designed a life outside work that moves in very set patterns. But I think it does all come back to reflecting on your own habits and really understanding what is going on in your mind/body. Like, I know that if I have more than 1-2 nights out a week, it really ruins my physical and emotional energy, so I know not to overpack my schedule. If I had no idea I would simply keep committing to things. So tl;dr know thyself!
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 12:02 am (UTC)I have to give a shoutout to Jeff Huang for the calendaring system. I use this text file + calendar system pretty much exactly as he describes for work, and it is really effective for me.
But yes I agree very much different brains different tricks, my brain would get really stressed out having 500 things on the to-do list so it would simply yell at me to do or discard at least 490 of them before writing them down anywhere haha
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 03:53 am (UTC)I alr use textfiles for note taking (soo much better than onenote or email), and the idea of a cumulative textfile where everything is searchable... reminds me of old .txt game tutorials with ascii art and formatting, how nostalgic
no subject
Date: 14 February 2026 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 11:31 am (UTC)* google tasks: categorized lists (eg. things to do before moving, things i want to buy on black friday, cleaning tasks), this is somewhat new but i have liked it
* microsoft to-do: work equivalent of google tasks - started doing this recently
* bring: grocery/purchase list (i like how it automatically generates a relevant icon)
* google sheets: expense tracking and calculations for life + indv trips
* google docs: trip planning, personal journalling (i just build on one doc for months. i used to use penzu for journalling which kept them all in one place, but it was easier to put screenshots in gdocs. ironically i had to stop doing that because it was consuming too much of my google storage... might switch back idk!)
* google calendar: appointments, trips, birthdays, events
* google reminders: if i think of something i need to do (or a line for fic...) on my drive home i tell my car to make a reminder for me... it shows up in my calendar
* google maps: saved places to go
* goodreads/letterboxd/youtube watch later/spotify manual listen later playlist: respective things i can consume later
* new tab extension: used to use this in the same way as google tasks (it shows up when i hit new tab on google chrome, and has pages to write notes)
* material notes app: used this for recipes, other long-term reminders but it fell off as i started using it for minute cryptic...
* facebook messenger self-chat: rapid self-thoughts, reminders, plans for the day
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 11:58 am (UTC)- I will check out google tasks, vaguely aware it's a newer app in the google family (nvm 2018 which is 7 years ago). Is this the one you use on the go?
- I'm like you for google docs and trip planning, it's so easy to share with friends as you go and I love the chaotic energy of a badly formatted mood board inside a doc. reminds me of fandom manifesto days :')
- did you know youtube watch later playlist has an upper limit of 5000 (victim who found out last week)
- you have reminded me that I also need to think of a system to archive recipes
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 01:47 am (UTC)> talking to my car is the only time i use some kind of "digital assistant" and that's simply because it's the only way to record my thoughts while driving T__T car systems need to be improved... i need dictation at the ready
> i really only use google tasks for those categorized lists and those are usually medium-long-term tasks, but yes it is convenient on mobile. if it's like something i wanna do when i get home i put it in self-chat lol or a reminder
> omg i didn't know LOL my watch later is at 178, i try to cull if it's not something i'm interested in anymore
> i've tried a few things for recipes that haven't really stuck, the one that works for recipes i actually use is my dreamwidth posts LOL.
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 03:30 am (UTC)- omg me too, I go back to my own to even remember what I can cook + ofc dw user kumquat's gorgeous recipe list with pictures. I think there's a point to be made about how the more effort you spend documenting your life, the more you revisit that doc... sounds like we should both continue the dreamwidth recipe series
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 01:47 pm (UTC)i use GCal for work bc my company uses the Google ecosystem by default. i keep my work appointments/to dos and life appointment/to dos separate bc compartmentalization is good, lol
to dos:
i swear by Things. i used it for years, since my college days. the only reason i don't use it now is bc my laptop OS is out of date and won't run it anymore. now i'm using Todoist bc it's prob the most similar i've been able to find, but i still don't like it as much. but yeah, just a one-off payment and you get a nice app with a nice minimalist UI that syncs across your devices. if you already use Todoist it will prob be pretty intuitive. it uses the "getting things done" system where you dump everything you need to get done into your inbox so it's out of your head, then further organize with folders and tags. has deadlines and recurring deadlines; today and upcoming displays. however there is no web client, you have to use a desktop client/phone app.
this is kind of supplemented by my email inbox in a sense; if there's an order that hasn't been delivered to me yet, a bill i haven't paid yet, an event that hasn't happened yet, i leave them in my inbox, and once they've been taken care of, i archive them. there's usually a to do list or calendar item associated with them, but i won't note down the info separately, i'll just look it up in my email instead.
sometimes i just note out my to do list for the day on paper or in a notes app for more quick, in the moment stuff where i don't want to mess around with a more comprehensive to do list app.
for work i use Google Tasks and for overall project tracking my team uses Trello.
budgeting:
Daily Budget app for quick general daily expenses, Goodbudget for different daily "buckets" like groceries, bills, cat expenses, transport, etc. honestly, i could prob only use Goodbudget at this point and create a "general daily expense" bucket there, and stop using Daily Budget, but i prob use both bc i used Daily Budget first until the need for different "buckets" arose, so i was just in the habit.
and then Excel for tracking bigger expenses like plane tickets, big household purchases, etc. (the reason i use apps not Excel for daily expenses is that i can't input shit onto Excel on my phone, but i can input them into phone apps. if i wait til i get to my computer and don't log these items immediately on my phone when i'm out and about i forget.)
fitness:
Hevy (strength training), RunKeeper (outdoor runs) and Coros (everything, + it's connected to a fitness watch)
food:
MyFitnessPal
grocery list:
this actually goes on a physical whiteboard in my apartment bc i share it with my partner and he really doesn't like digital tracking for this kind of thing, lol. seeing it physically is a better reminder for him to actually go get them
media:
specific sites like Letterboxed for movies, StoryGraph for books, MyAnimeList for anime and manga. i don't have one for TV shows. i did use a site for vidya games at one point but i actually forget what it is now, lol.
sometimes i write quick lists of things i want to engage with soon in my notes app.
bookmarks:
i used Pinboard for the longest time, then switched to Raindrop.io (Lark's rec actually, heh). i use Instapaper for things i plan to read later. (it's... really long.) i used Pocket before that but it closed
places i want to visit:
Swarm (i know...) for local places + my notes app for places that are not on Swarm
journalling:
passport-sized traveller's notebook (for both gratitude journalling and general sorting out my thoughts) and Hobonichi Weeks (for logging events i want to look back on and remember later, noting anything special that happened, and sticking ephemera)
travel planning:
a mix between Todoist (things i need to get done, i have a template for trips), my notes app (for general notes and sometimes just pasting useful links instead of using my bookmark app for some reason) and Google Maps (to bookmark places i want to visit, important locations like the hotel i'm staying at, train stations, bus stations i'll need to use, the airport, etc)
notes:
Simplenote. another one i've used for years. it's, well, simple, it syncs across devices and web. it doesn't have media capabilities, tables or any formatting whatsoever really but i don't need any of that that. i actually find more bells and whistles distracting in a notes app context, lol.
i use this for work notes too, and also have a small work notebook if i need to jot anything down physically.
interested to see what you eventually choose :]
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 12:52 am (UTC)- raindrop and instapaper are definitely things I will look into bc I want to fit in more longform journalism over doomscrolling! and shout out to pocket <3 I remember using that along with evernote webclipper
- unfortunately things 3 is not in the running bc I have an android phone - it does look sooo pretty and well integrated into the apple ecosystem. I was just playing around with TickTick yesterday which is a similar program and love how intuitive everything feels. Similar functionality as Todoist (which I had set up years ago for all my someday-to-dos) but just sliiightly better UI which makes it so much more streamlined to use. I do have to say, apps are fun to use!
no subject
Date: 12 February 2026 02:23 pm (UTC)i use monarch for budgeting but i'm a really haphazard budgeter; lose it for meal tracking and storygraph for reading tracking; wanderlog for more complex travel planning; habits app for habit tracking, but its entire function is to remind me to take my medicine everyday at this point. otherwise i don't really track anything and i don't journal. my partner does most of the grocery shopping and meal planning thankfully.
i've always been interested in productivity and organization, but my particular brand of adhd has never responded well to planners or to-do lists when it comes to my personal life. on the other hand i think that means i spend too much mental energy reminding myself of things or constantly checking things.
anyway i'm excited to read all of the comments!
no subject
Date: 13 February 2026 03:36 am (UTC)it /is/ so exciting reading the comments on this post because I also love thinking about productivity as someone who loves that sense of control amidst the chaos. I also have add tendencies, so rigid lists and formulas never work because I always change my mind on the day to do what most interests me at that moment.
I wrote this post because I want to clean up my systems and try consolidating things into fewer apps so that I'm not juggling all these sources (because things fall through the cracks this way). ty for mentioning wanderlog and monarch, I'll take a look!! what is tha habit tracker app that you use?
no subject
Date: 17 February 2026 04:37 am (UTC)finally i use YNAB for budgeting which has been SUPER helpful
no subject
Date: 17 February 2026 11:21 pm (UTC)the most i have other than that is an outdated notion page where i log my marked for later (ao3) and manga tbr
no subject
Date: 18 February 2026 04:10 am (UTC)OmniFocus for to-do stuff that I expect to blast through in a month, and for checklists that I'll use repetedly.
Apple Notes for randomly scribbled stuff. If it gets big and interesting it goes to:
MacJournal, if it's personal and journal-entry-like, or
OneNote if it's more like an essay or a project. OneNote syncs with the phone and has tabs and pages and whatnot, and it's free.
On the phone, I use Scanner Pro. Not free, but really cheap, and really fast. I quickly scan every piece of paper I think I'll need later for any reason, including receipts and paper mail. It stores in iCloud.
Every now and then I open the iCloud folder on my computer and drag all the scans into Devonthink, then delete them off iCloud.
Devonthink is pricey, but I only had to buy it once. I use Devonthink for everything that's non-creative. Receipts, manuals, utility bills, tax forms, insurance stuff, etc. I have it set to make text-searchable PDFs out of everything I drop in. It's absolutely loaded with features and I only use about a quarter of them. Tons of stuff for auto-organizing.
But here's the thing: Devonthink has options for cloud storage, but you don't need them. You can install their app on your phone, and configure it to automatically sync everything between the phone and your lappy over your local network. It never goes up-and-back to some random server.
This is great for three reasons:
1. I have a copy of everything on my phone and can find stuff any time, even when standing in line at the DMV. It's automatically excluded from cloud backups. Which matters because:
2. I'm 50 years old, and this Devonthink archive goes back 25 years now. It's 20 gigabytes of stuff. I have the serial numbers, manuals, and receipts for everything, on hand all the time. This has come in REALLY handy over the years, especially when traveling.
3. I have a lot of sensitive information in Devonthink.
I don't want it going anywhere near cloud storage, a.k.a. The Clown. Stuff permanently stored in The Clown is an open invitation to get it quietly stolen when some IT bugger accidentally leaves the wrong port open during a database move. This way, the "attack surface" for someone stealing my digital life is reduced to the people who can physically walk away with my laptop and guess my password. Whereas the "attack surface" for stuff in The Clown is the whole damn planet.
Also, I absolutely hate "subscriptions" to software. I find it outrageous and criminal. You put your personal data on there, and they hold it for ransom, forever? No thanks...