In today’s episode, I answer a question from Nate (a new listener who found me via Cal Newport’s Deep Questions Podcast), who asked where it makes sense to START in terms of implementing all of the planning systems I talk about on the podcast (and in the book). So — how does one begin to build a system – all at once, or piece by piece?
References mentioned:
Airtight Task Management Episode
Weekly Planning Episode (old + newer)!
Then, I interview September Gerety, an CEO in her empty nest phase who now finds herself with a thriving community and social life — and it all started with planning. She shares her story (as well as a bit about her current systems!). If you have questions for September, you can leave them here and she’ll try to answer!
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3 Comments
I listen to all of them and found this to be a great episode – some really valuable tips and tricks! If it’s not too personal, would it be possible for September to share her list of “inboxes” she referred to (or is this a possible future BLP episode?). After reading your book I’ve been trying to narrow down my inboxes/input sources and every time I think I have them nailed down, a new source pops up with something I nearly missed!
Sure (it’s a lot!)
Inboxes I process with my husband on Thursday during our “Sunday Basket” time:
– Mailbox x2 (One at home, one PO box for work. I also handle all of the mail for my sister’s family while she is out of the country for a year, which gets put into a separate Sunday Basket.)
– Photos – we airdrop to share photos with each other, delete pics we don’t want/need, and sync to Dropbox for backup
I fill an “admin” folder with whatever personal/household tasks need to get done this week and make a pile of any papers that need to get filed.
Inboxes I process on my own during the Friday Clean Slate session:
-File pile from Thursday
-Admin folder from Thursday (I calendar time to complete these tasks)
-Friday Workbox (similar to the Sunday Basket concept, but for work)
-Apple notes
-Index cards
-Leuchtturm notebook
-Meeting notes
-Notion – this is where my team communicates, so I check the communication hub and my task board, plus our “quarterly rocks” board
-Process Street – my company uses this software to assign and track all recurring tasks and processes
-Email – my assistant handles a lot of this, but we use the multiple inbox feature in gmail so there is an “action” section in both my work and personal emails and I calendar time to handle anything there that will take longer than 2 min. There is an “event” section in my personal email and I go through this and book/calendar anything I actually want to do.
-Promo calendar for work
-Slack (my cycling group)
-Discord (my book club)
-Meetup
-Text messages/WhatsApp/Signal
All of these are listed on the recurring Sunday Basket and Clean Slate calendar events, so I just go down the list each week without needing to remember. Processing basically means calendaring action items and putting reference items or ideas into Notion, then archiving or getting rid of everything else.
I will ask her to address!!! TY for the question!