Three Tools for Peak Productivity
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Kelly: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the productivity genius podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield. And in this episode, we're going to talk about something that I get some questions about, and I love talking about, and that's all the apps and planners and productivity systems and project management systems, all the different places that you can be storing your to do's or planning things out and which ones I use and which ones I suggest.
So the good news is what I suggest. All of them are free. Now I actually pay for one. I'll tell you which one that is and why I pay for it. But the free version of all of this is freaking fantastic. You don't need to pay for anything in any of these things. It's a simple system that I use and it really allows me to end every day with complete clarity knowing that everything is captured, nothing's falling through the cracks, everything is planned.
So this is the system that I use for that clarity and calm in my life. Initially, I thought what I wanted [00:01:00] was a single tool to house all of it, to be the place where I capture my to do's, I organize everything and also plan everything out. And I tested lots of tools
but what I realized is that if I use three separate tools, I know that sounds like it would make things more complicated. But when I switched to three separate tools, I was finally able to have everything organized and be very calm and know that everything was exactly where it was supposed to be and planned out and nothing was missing.
So the first would be some place to capture things. So it could be as simple as a notebook. It could be post it notes. I like having an app on my phone because I always have my phone with me. But ideally you'd want this to be something that you always have with you.
It could be a folder anything that you are confident most of the time, the overwhelming majority of the time, I'm going to have this with me. That's why I chose to keep it on my phone. And I also will, I'll explain that sometimes I'll put something on a post it and [00:02:00] in certain situations, but what I like to have for bucket one.
is an app on my phone that is dedicated as my capture app. This is why I don't like actually using the notes app on your phone. If you don't use the notes app on your phone, then you could totally use the notes app for this. If you already keep some stuff in your notes app, then I'd suggest you don't use the notes app for this.
I think you should have a separate app that the only thing you use that app for is capturing ideas that come to you. Maybe you get a text message that there's a birthday party coming up and you remember, okay, I have to remember put that on my schedule or buy a birthday present or maybe you get an email that you need to follow up on.
One spot where when these things come in, you're going to jot it down. So for me, I use The, an app on my phone. So the three that I would suggest for this are the ones that I've used and tried and loved are Things. I have a iPhone, so maybe these aren't all Android, but the, I'll give you three options.
[00:03:00] They're all great Things. Or To-doist or Google tasks. All great. if any of them say that you have to pay for them, don't get it because you're not going to use probably 95 percent of the capability of this app because literally all you're going to do is just capture ideas and to do's in this app and then you're going to clear it out.
So most of the time it's just going to have a couple things in there. and then you're going to clear it out and then you'll gather a couple things and then you're going to clear it out. It's all you're going to use it for. So that's bucket one. Bucket two is a place where all of your to dos get organized.
Now this would be totally cool on a piece of paper or a google doc. For me, I do this on my iPad. I pretty much always have my iPad with me and the only reason I do it on my iPad versus a piece of paper is because I have one page that has all of the things that are currently in my world as to dos. And what I do is I write everything down on there.
So after something gets captured I will, when it's time to grab those. [00:04:00] Those to do's from my app. I do it every day when I go to do my planning I open up my app. Is there anything that I captured that I need to add to my list? I transfer them all onto my list and then I delete them from that capture app because now they are Where they need to be to get on to my schedule So I write them in Good Notes is the app I use on my the other one that I I like is notability.
Both basically do the exact same thing, but I personally love good notes. And I write them all down on one page, and that's where all of my to dos get organized, and I assign how much time I'm gonna give to each of my tasks, and if they need to be broken down, I'll break them down on that single page. So some place where you're going to organize your to do's now if you're putting them all on post its This could be like your wall or it could be like a file folder that you open up and you move the post its around I think I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I think that could be a Spectacular place to store all of your to do's post its. I love post its one of my[00:05:00] Amazing friends, Terry Ream, what she does is all of her to do, she puts on post its and she has a huge calendar on her wall. It's a week long calendar and all of her to do's she puts on Sunday. Because she doesn't work on Sunday.
And then as she's scheduling, she looks at all of her to dos on Sunday. So let's say today's Wednesday. She's going to plan out her day. She looks on Sunday. She looks at all of the to dos that have been captured there. And then she moves them on to Wednesday, the ones that she's going to do. And then when she's done with those things on Wednesday, she moves them to Saturday.
I love that system because she can see her progress. It's such a great Visual little dopamine hit to see all of these to do's piling up on Saturdays. So I love that system too for her That's great. And it's they're easy to move around right? So I love that You could also easily do it on like a Google Doc where you cut and paste to reorder things that you're like Oh, actually this is more important or this is more important to move things around or even a Google Slides presentation Or maybe Canva.
Canva might be nice. Google too, because you could keep [00:06:00] that mobile with you if you wanted to. It, or it could just be a piece of paper. If I was going to do it on paper, I would probably keep it in a notebook. And then I would use an erasable pen the Frixion pen. I'll link it in the show notes, but it's erasable and erases beautifully.
Not like the old school ones when we were in, I don't know if you had the ones that would smear all over the place when you were in school, but they erase beautifully. And I might just renumber them. That's why I don't do it on paper because it's, I like moving the whole to do all over the page and like moving things around.
So that's why I like doing that digitally. But that's like the second set of tools. So where you're storing all of your to do's. So there's a place where they get captured, then a place where they get organized and I don't like organizing them. I know I could totally organize them in the app on my phone, but I don't like having this long scrolling list in the app.
I feel like. I like seeing it all on one page. I feel like when I have to scroll, I get, my brain is just nervous that I'm never [00:07:00] going to scroll and I'm never going to think of those things at the bottom. So instead, I like them seeing them all spread out in one spot. So that could be like my friend Terry does with on the wall poster, it could be in a file folder, like you just have a.
Folder that you open up and you have all your to-dos on one side or maybe even multiple pages in the file folder could be a notebook. But I like being able to see all of my to-dos at one glance. So that's where I organize my to-dos. And then the third tool or bucket is a place where I actually plan things out.
The place where I did that for the longest time was Google Calendar. That works beautifully. I love it. I love how easy it is for me to move things if need be, to change times. I love that it's it's mobile. It's always with me. Totally great tool. It could be your personal planner, right? It could be your notebook, your planner, wherever you're writing down your times.
It could be another piece of paper where you just write down the things you're going to do today. But I would keep that separate from my master list. So I would. Write down a plan or schedule out a [00:08:00] plan each day. That's how I work. I plan out each morning. I take a few minutes to plan out my day, decide exactly when things are going to happen.
I take that list, make sure it's organized, make sure all the captured things have gotten onto my list. I reorganize it, make sure everything that needs to get done today or the things I want to get done are organized and at the top and I've decided how long I'm going to give myself for each thing, and then I transfer them onto my calendar.
And then once. Once they're transferred onto my calendar, I don't look at those other tools throughout the day. The only tool I might look at is the capture tool if something comes in that I want to remember, right? So if an incoming to do comes in, I'll put it in the capture tool knowing that tomorrow morning, The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to open up that tool, take all of that stuff, put it on my list, organize the list, and then put it on my schedule.
So those are the three buckets. It's a place to capture the to dos. It's a place to organize the to dos. And then finally, a place to schedule the to dos. Keeping them [00:09:00] separate. is just fantastic for my brain. So the capturing app only gets a few things ever like piling up on there because each day it gets emptied.
So nothing gets stored on there more than 24 hours. And then I have the place where all of my to dos are organized.
And that list I duplicate that each day, so as I put them onto my calendar, I cross them out. And then the next day when I duplicate it, I actually erase the ones that got done and scheduled and then I move everything up and move things around. So that's like my second bucket. And then the third bucket is where I schedule.
Now, like I said, for the longest time in bucket three, I used Google Calendar but I'm actually in love with the tool SunSama. That's where I actually schedule everything. It just works so beautifully. It is a paid tool. If you want to try it out for 30 days, you don't need to put your credit card in.
I'll put the link in the show notes. I have a affiliate link that gives you 30 [00:10:00] days free. It's so pretty and it works so nicely So that's where I actually schedule everything out. it actually has a focus feature so you hit play.
It keeps track of how much time you're involved in different things. So I really do. Love that app. That's what I'm using now for my scheduling But everything else that I use is free and I used Google Calendar for the longest time which obviously is free So if you want to see any of the tools, I'll link them in the show notes But those are the three buckets I would suggest and again the reason I suggest having separate tools as opposed to putting it all in one spot for me once my like project planning and to do's Wind up taking up like multiple layers in the tool where I don't see them all on one page.
My brain starts to get nervous that I'm missing something. So I personally love having a separate tool for each thing. So my capture tool only ever gets a few things in there and then I clear them [00:11:00] out. And so that's great. So I know everything's taken care of there. My to do list is always at most one page.
If you're, so I do two columns. If your list is longer than that, since it's digital, you could just write smaller. So I would suggest maybe you make it three columns. I love seeing it all on one page. And then my third tool is the scheduling tool. So that could be your planner, that could be a wall calendar, that could be Google Calendar, that could be Sunsama , anything like that.
And so each of them, so I've got that single page to do list, bucket two, right? That's always, I can always see what's on there. And then when I duplicate, I know everything from yesterday came over, I erase the things that got done and scheduled, and then I move everything up for the new day.
I rearrange them, my new to dos, anything that came in, and that I know is really organized. And then once I make my decisions for the day, and put those things on the calendar. I know I don't have to look back at [00:12:00] that. So it really keeps me focused and clear and it has worked out beautifully for me.
So I hope you found this helpful. If you have any questions on any of the tools or anything that you want to run by me, I would love to hear from you at productivity genius coach on Instagram, or you can send me an email at hello And if you have pictures of your beautiful planner or your post its, I love nerding out with those things.
So please share.
I hope using the tools in the way that I suggest creates a situation that makes it easier for you to feel like you're on top of everything. Nothing's falling through the cracks and you can relax going into your personal life and not worry about what you might be missing.
Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week.
