[Advice] If you’re experiencing chaos, you are not the problem. Your process is.

We all face chaos. And it sucks!

You may be going through one at the moment and having a process that works can help you get through.

This is what I use. It involves 4 parts and should take you only 5 minutes to read through.

First, a little bit of context.

The process I’m about to share with you can be used in your favorite todo app. Mine happens to be Google Keep so I’ve written with “Google Keep” instead of “favorite todo app” to make the writing flow.

But don’t get caught up on the specific app as you read through. You can replace “Google Keep” with “Todoist”, “One Note”, etc.

I intentionally skipped the details of how to use app features like checklist, colors, reminders, etc. And instead talked about the big picture of how things fit because that’s the most important aspect of using any tool.

All good? Let’s get straight to it!

Single Source of Truth

I use Google Keep as my single source of truth that feeds into other tools. This means it’s my first stop.

First stop for capturing floating thoughts, grocery, ideating, journaling, workout plans, finances. All of these have their own labels so capturing things usually takes a few taps on my phone or three clicks on a chrome tab that’s always open with Google Keep.

From there I move to Calendar for fixed appointments.

Then Trello for team tracking collaborations.

Then I switch between Notes for personal writing or Google docs for collaborations. What’s interesting here is that most of my write ups start in Keep on my phone. Including this post.

When it starts getting longer I switch to my laptop and copy out the content from Google Keep web into Notes or Google Doc.

Any time it feels like I need special formatting or the itch to write in my favorite font – oh goodness, Montserrat! anybody else love this font? – it’s a sign that I need to switch to a writing tool. Switching to another tool isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But not many believe that.

Everything App

A lot of people try to hack Google Keep or their todo app to become a writing app, a collaboration tool, a calendar app, an EVERYTHING tool.

The fact is that no one tool will address everything.

I made this mistake for so long. But you’re better off picking up a single source of truth and then building others around it.

It’s fine to use Keep and Trello.
It’s fine to use a todo reminder and calendar.
One doesn’t replace the other; they complement each other.

Paper Itch

Once in a while I get the itch to write on paper. That feeling is especially strong when I’m planning big goals. I love to map out everything in front of me. And writing with my favorite pen keeps the ideas flowing.

In paper situations, I scribble all on paper then when I get done, I take a screenshot and add it under the relevant label in Keep. Example, if you saw my “big ideas” label you’d see a lot of screenshots in there.

I also do this when white-boarding with colleagues on a coding project or brainstorming sessions. Get done. Take picture. Add to label.

Then I trash the paper. Multiple years of trying this has showed me that the paper only feels good in the moment. A few weeks later and it looks like I’ve got paper trash all over the place.

So I screenshot and trash ASAP. This process satisfies both my digital access to my planner (beats small notebooks any day). But it also lets me scratch that my paper itch.

Finally, Routines

Every morning on weekdays I go through my Keep on my laptop to see things that should be top of mind that day.

During the day, I add things to Keep either from my phone or laptop. Cycle continues until Friday.

Every Friday, I go through my Keep to clean up any tasks that fell through or that should move into other tools.

Then repeat.

Thanks for reading.

If you have any questions let me know in the comments.

I wrote a version with gifs on my twitter account. Feel free to like and retweet if you're on Twitter.