UPDATE 1 Mar 2025
Things have changed this last month. Firstly, my easing into work has now come to an end and I am in full flow. The paper task list has quickly become unwieldy. This is due to needing defer dates and due dates for items. I tried adding them to my calendar, but that became cluttered. So at the end of the second month, paper based productivity has not worked!
However, I am still working on projects mainly on paper and still print out project information and use Ternouth’s paper based system when working on projects. This continues to work well and allows me to focus on one project at a time easily.
My workflow currently is as follows. Tasks and projects are added to Omnifocus. I chose Omnifocus as on computer it is the fasted and easiest to add and organise tasks. I also need something with a review system that forces me to review every task regularly. When a project becomes active the relevant information is printed and added to my project tray. The project is still retained on Omnifocus as a placeholder for review purposes. I currently have 20 or so active projects. These get reviewed weekly. This may sound a lot, but they cannot all be worked on at the same time as some are waiting for other information or others to complete their task before I can continue. I tend to write a project’s tasks once printed on a Post-it stuck to the top page of the project. My handwriting quickly brings me up to speed and I’m not overloading Omnifocus. I don’t need to see every project task in Omnifocus. I’ll only add tasks that need a defer or due date.
I have also re-instituted my tickler file, which sits by my desk. This serves to hold paperwork that is not needed until a certain date. For example, my hospital appointment paperwork works well here, as does paying certain bills, or notes needed for specific meetings.
One other thing I’ve also started doing is filing paperwork in a physical folder. I have for the past 15 years scanned documents into Devonthink and destroyed the original. Over the last 15 years I have accumulated gigabytes of documents. This is making it harder to see the wood for the trees. I did this on the basis that storage is cheap and therefore I can keep everything. This has proved a false premise for me. Storing every document creates document noise that makes it difficult to find what is truly important. Therefore I have decided to store the documents physically and thin them out at the end of every year. It is easy at the end of the year to destroy documents that are no longer relevant such as old car insurances, tax reminders, delivery notes, etc. This leaves me with a smaller pile of documents that I know need to be kept that can then be scanned and filed.
So at the end of the second month I’m on a hybrid system.
UPDATE 2 Apr 2025
One big thing that has changed this month is the return to David Allen’s GTD system. Mark Forster’s system was great to a point, but as my workload has continued to increase it cannot cope with the volume of tasks and projects. As I was already using Omnifocus, this has not been a problem.
I while ago I came across the following in a Reddit thread:
Then, you have to do the hard part. Maintain it. The easy part is the first 2-5 days, you’ll check your notes/application and be on your way. But from there, it’s a little bit of work to build the habit of updating/maintaining the system: don’t quit! Getting over the hump of building the habit is what makes everything happen. How do you keep track of everything?
The challenge for me now has been maintaining a habit. This has been harder than I anticipated. Omnifocus has been really good with a built in facility to review all projects. Plus David Allen’s GTD about every project needing a next action.
So at the end of this month, I’m all about maintaining and tweaking where necessary, although tweaking is now rarely ocurring.
Like many here, I’d used a paper-based system in the 80s and early 90s (Covey Planner, Franklin, etc.), but when digital planners, calendars, and task managers arrived and were reliable, I switched and never looked back. I don’t miss paper-based systems.
Thank @Bmosbacker. I’m still using a hybrid system that I quite like. The physical tickler file has been far more useful than I remember it being. I do agree though, that a lot of stuf has moved online. I’m still printing out project information and working of paper. This really is useful for me for active projects. I’m finding that I’m using Allen’s full GTD system for the first time and I quite like it. Nothing seems to be falling through the cracks! (Yet!).
So, 5 months after starting with a mainly paper based system, where am I at now? The short version is that I have gradually been moving back to a digital productivity system. The paper system was a big help getting started back into work after a nearly 6 month break, but wasn’t realistically sustainable for me.
My return to the digital space has had one main change. The reduction of my tech stack from 15 apps to 5. This is my main tech stack and doesn’t include things like email client, calendar and occasional excel spreadsheets. It has really helped me focus and I now feel protective of it, as it is helping me be productive.
I appreciate this update! I took this journey with you in a way, and have thought of you many times as I tweaked this or that.
I have really appreciated Ternouth’s system. It is working very well for me. I have a bunch of transparent folders and I collect related materials in them. I have a lot of deep reading to do in my work and it’s been enjoyable to read them on paper.
The “culling box” has been great, too. I empty the folders regularly but sometimes have to go back and all is there so no biggie.
I’m also using post-it notes A LOT (small ones for “sand” and big ones for “rocks” and blue ones for meetings and purple ones for personal appts).
There remain drawbacks in the paper-based way (it doesn’t travel well for example), and beyond the immediate to dos of this week, I’ve yet to find a good way to really track overall project status. I WFNH (work from near home) and without a dedicated space for all this paper there’s no way I’d be able to manage it.
But overall, I feel like there were some real wins for me in this experiment. I enjoy the tactile and spatial nature of actual materials in the world. Thanks for inspiring me!
