Update: It’s been two weeks since I started using Google Keep, and I’ve documented about a dozen new ideas since setting this up.
I lost so many million dollar ideas (all of my ideas are worth exactly one million dollars. This will be my simple idea capture system for the rest of my life unless something changes.ĭo you see how powerful that is? This is an open loop I’ve had on and off for years and I permanently solved it in less than 10 minutes. Before this, I let the problem remain vague and had my ideas everywhere. And because I had ideas in multiple places that I rarely checked, I didn’t often write down ideas because who knows when I’d see them again. I didn’t even look at the other 4 solutions in that article because this will work (also, Google Keep can convert voice recordings into a note, which is useful in the car or for 3 AM ideas). They’re both tied to my gmail address and will sync. BOOM! I’ve just set up Google Keep on my computer and phone.The solution is to find something simple enough for my tastes, rather than terminate the thought at “Evernote won’t work.” Thus, a quick google search has me reading an article on “ simple evernote alternatives now.” It’s promising!.
I’m thinking of Evernote functionality, but a simpler “blank digital sheet of paper” that shows up on both devices easily.This is the part of the process where I’d always give up and “float the decision.” Evernote comes to mind as the most popular solution.I want something to hold my ideas that syncs between my phone and the computer, as those are my main idea-capturing devices and I don’t want to manually have to match them up.Just imagine the cumulative “annoyance” I’ve felt from my brain reminding me to find a solution for this!īut I’m going to decide right now, because I want to show you how easy, yet powerful this process is. That example of “one place to write down ideas” is the exact thought I’ve bounced up into the air DOZENS of times for MONTHS and months and months. I’m the worst offender of floating my decisions. That’s wrong! The later version of you won’t be much better than the current you. In the future, you’ll have a little bit more information, but how many times is that new information pertinent to your decision? Not often in my experience! Upon analyzing myself while floating a decision, I realize it’s because I think I’ll know “the right answer” later. There’s comfort and safety in not making a decision, and bouncing it up for a later version of you to handle. Why do we let it happen? It’s Comforting Not To Decide, But It’s Harmful Too Thoughts are thrown in corners for later analysis, only to be forgotten and found again at inappropriate times. She’s trying to focus on the newspaper, but in the corner of her eye, she sees a several other pages fly by that look interesting, and behind her, she hears even more papers flapping and rustling in the wind. Individually, they seem harmless, but together they can stress you out and give you a sense that the underlying theme of your life is best described as “controlled chaos.” Remember the first picture? Compare it to this one, which is what happens when you “float” too many decisions. These open loops are not balloons floating above us, they are more like small anchors that weigh on our shoulders. I believe David Allen calls them “open loops” because they’re unresolved parts of our life. The problem with unaddressed ideas and unmade decisions is that they don’t exactly “float” up there. To an outsider, the person would seem crazy to think, “I should find one go-to place to write my ideas down” and then do nothing, only to have the same exact thought a week later. In that moment, though, the person is more than happy to “bounce” that idea back up into the air to float.įloating decisions are what create backlogs, so the first step in getting organized is to nail down those floating decisions.įloated decision: “Let me think about that for a while.” *proceeds to not think about it* If we were to grab a random human and examine their mind and life, we’d be aliens find a lot of needless repetitive thoughts and ideas. Given life’s 800 trillion variables, well, the math doesn’t work out favorably for us. It really doesn’t take much to overwhelm a person: studies have found our minds can only hold a few things at a time. Organization means having a system to organize your life through, but a backlog can prevent us from having a system, because we’re overwhelmed with what needed to be done yesterday. This is what an organized mind feels like.
#How to organize your life in college how to#
How to organize your life: it’s more important to be decisive than to find the perfect system.
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