Open Q - organisational systems

[hwarium]

Question 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

Comments

[doxian]

appointments, inc. everything from social events to health, plus certain reminders that benefit from being input into a calendar over a to do list: Proton Calendar on web and iPhone (GCal serves the same function, i've just been trying to move away from Google lately)

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 the only reason i don't use it now is bc my laptop OS is out of date and won't run it anymore.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 :]

[hwarium]

omg doxy, thank you for writing this up in my comments, I had so much fun reading it. like if you want to directly turn this into a dw post I don't blame you bc its formatted and ready to go.

- 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!