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]

reading abt other ppl's tracking habits is so interesting partly bc it's cool to see what works for others even tho it would never work for me. my to do list is over 500 items long. putting them on GCal would be a nightmare LMAO. (it is also something of a someday black hole though :/)

[themorninglark]

I also used to be a Things devotee and I still love it!! I still think it is the best task manager on the planet. What made me explore alternatives is that I was trying to break myself out of Apple ecosystem lock-in 😔 and like you I also tried Todoist, but I didn't like it as much as Things (nothing is as good as Things...) so I just experimented to see if I could simply make do with my calendar, and to my surprise, it worked.

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

[hwarium]

oh I just checked out your jeff hua link, how interesting!!

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

[themorninglark]

I've been using my work txt file since mid-2024 and it's going strong :D

[hwarium]

right right right! and it's cool to see how people can use the same apps differently, or see how it fits into their lives. It's also a little peek into what is /in/ their lives that require organising and that can inspire further ideas in my head...