Systems & Processes Archives - Page 5 of 47

Starting the day with blank paper

I tried maybe a dozen different planning apps over the years but honestly a blank piece of paper is the thing that sticks. My digital calendars are cluttered with repeating events and old integrations that half stopped working. Writing on paper feels slower, but I actually look at it. I literally fold the paper in half so one side has the three things I know I must finish and the other side becomes a messy scratchpad of random tasks. It looks ugly but my brain keeps coming back to it instead of ignoring yet another unread badge on my phone 😛

It sounds old school but pen and paper also saves me from the tiny tech pitfalls. Last week my Todoist Zap that automatically created a task when an email came in just… froze. No error, no warning, just no new tasks. I wasted almost an hour reconnecting Gmail before realizing the API limit hit overnight. Paper doesn’t crash like that, it just takes ink wherever I put it.

Blocking chunks of real working time

I stopped setting tasks with exact timestamps because it was torture watching Google Calendar scream at me while I was still mid task. Now I just carve out rough blocks. Like, morning is writing only, afternoon is admin, evening is cleanup. When the block starts, I literally mute Slack. The signal that works best for me is closing Chrome entirely. If I leave the browser on, I will without fail click into another tab and go down a rabbit hole.

Instead of typing calendar events that I ignore, I set a giant sticky note on the side of my monitor that literally says WRITE NOW. Sounds ridiculous but when I put it up the day is six times more productive. Little frictions make a difference. My laptop even has “Do Not Disturb” toggled on permanently during these named blocks.

Breaking down tasks into micro steps

A major problem in planning is overestimating how much fits in one day. Writing “finish blog post” on my list is useless. Breaking it into micro steps is the only way it survives reality. So I write “outline post,” then “draft intro,” then “recheck word count,” then “add example table,” etc. Even silly things like “fix headline capitalization” get their own line. It sounds like overkill but it means I can cross something off without waiting until the entire project is finished.

Yesterday, for example, I literally wrote and checked off “test Zap connection” as a single line. Took two minutes, but without that item written separately I would have just lumped it in with “set up newsletter workflow” and lost motivation entirely.

Dealing with broken automation mid day

This happens more often than I want to admit. I’ll have a plan to write maybe three paragraphs straight, then suddenly notice that my Airtable automation didn’t push the record to Slack. At that point the writing plan is pulled apart by troubleshooting. The trick I use is to capture the interruption on the paper list immediately. I scribble “fix Airtable push” with a box next to it. That way, instead of bouncing between tasks and losing the writing flow, I at least know there’s a visible marker that the interruption got logged.

For example, I had one case last week where the action step said “success” in Zapier but the Slack channel was still empty. The log showed “delivered” but nothing appeared. I pasted the whole raw request into a plain text note and left it. That gave me permission to move on back to the main writing block without spiraling. If I did not log it, though, I keep jumping back to check every five minutes. Logging is my mental off switch.

Visualizing the day with tables

One thing that helps beginners is turning vague tasks into a simple table. It does not have to be fancy. My sketch usually looks like this with a pen on paper:

The table is nothing magical but the grid makes it feel contained. Without drawing boxes I keep writing long scrolling lists and get lost. For folks starting with planning, literally just drawing three rows like that might work better than any app you download. 🙂

Using timers without being rigid

Pomodoro technique gets tossed around a lot, but I can’t handle the fifty prompts an app throws at me. Timer rings while I’m finally in flow and I get annoyed. What I actually do: I set a kitchen timer, not a phone alarm. I crank it to around half an hour. It ticks loud enough that I remember I started something. When it dings, I check if I need a break or if I want to ignore it and keep rolling. The point for me is not strict twenty five minute sprints, it’s having some physical marker that I set an intention.

It’s worth trying with any old timer you have lying around the house instead of downloading yet another productivity app. The fewer excuses to grab your phone mid block, the better.

Separating thinking tasks and clicking tasks

One planning trick I learned the hard way is to separate brain heavy creative work from click heavy admin work. Writing paragraphs or making decisions uses a different mental mode than updating fifty tags in an email editor. So in my daily plan, I lump creative writing in its own block far away from database updates. If I try to do both in the same hour my focus crumbles. Splitting them means I can get through the repetitive clicking while listening to music later without guilt.

Sometimes I literally write in my plan “no clicking until finish text.” It sounds silly but it saves me from opening web dashboards too early. That’s the danger zone where I see a broken workflow and lose the whole afternoon. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Finishing with a messy reflection

At the end of the day, before shutting down the laptop, I jot a messy paragraph on the back of my list. More like “I lost forty minutes to Zap error again” or “writing block went smoother than expected.” Those reflections don’t get posted anywhere, but when I flip back through the notebook I can see what always derails things. For me it’s usually broken automations. For a beginner, this reflection can show whether the issue was too much planning, not enough breaks, or underestimated time. It’s a low tech but high clarity habit that feels a lot better than just refreshing dashboards hoping something works.