How to improve quality of life by having the right daily habits - Second Step
Now that you have the collection tool ready and have collected all the items buzzing in your mind. Let's move on to the second habit. I do this at night and if you wonder why, you can check out this article.
The second habit is to process your collections on a DAILY basis.
The mistakes I have seen most folks did are 1. They don’t collect the items so then things slide and fell through the cracks. 2. They over-collected the items but never processed or only process them once a while and got so frustrated. To avoid those two common mistakes, we would need to manage the collected items on a regular basis. The optimal interval for me is on daily basis. Sometimes during the day if my work is not so crazy then I use some break to process the items too.
Just a reminder if you are doing it first time - like you write down 2 hours of items and then try to process them - you probably need a full day. My first time I actually divided the items I wrote down and gradually process them in a week before I was able to start my daily process. The beauty is that you can refine the system or intervals based on what is the best fit for you.
Yes, it takes time to set it up but when you are on it, you will feel the benefits. Before I had all these daily habits, I felt my mind is always buzzing. And now when I am done with my daily routine, I have a peaceful calmness in my brain that is so enjoyable.
How to process those items? At first those tasks/thoughts seem so random and so many and all different methods asked you to do different things with them too. What I do is I would ask myself the following questions for each item:
1. Do I need to act upon the item? Is that a thought/note for future or an actionable item?
If yes, actionable - then I simply assign a date and time that I need to finish it. The digital app Todoist I used is very good with it.
If no, I put the item to my reference list (you can tag it or organize the reference list)
2. Does this item belong to a project or related to other tasks? To be honest, if you have fewer items, you can skip this. I have many different things running at the same time, so I need to categorize them. This is also similar to mind maps, you connect the dots between different items. You can set up either projects or tags to group the items together. I personally don’t use GTD tags system as I think they are a bit outdated as nowadays I have my cell phone and I literally could do almost all tasks anywhere. So I used projects or folders to group items together.
3. Any other actions/notes I need to create based on this item? Sometimes it will trigger some other thoughts or actions. Don’t worry, just write them down and process them too.
It is very easy to do in the Todoist app - but all these can be executed on different other digital apps too. You can easily process those on your Note/Google Key and set up either reminders or put on your Google Calendar.
And if you like pen and paper, you can check out different journal system to process items and improve productivity
If you like free form style, check out Bullet Journal - you would need to study its system a bit before you get the hang of it but it is quite easy to follow. Basically you would need some plain notebook to construct your own.
I would recommend the following notebooks as they are sturdy and easy to carry around for the Bullet Journal style.
Minimalism Art | Classic Notebook Journal, Size: 5" X 8.3" - I like it has different color cover and also different inside styles.
Bullet Journal/Notebook with Pen Loop - if you prefer something with leather and more professional looking
Dingbats Wildlife Medium Hardcover Notebook - I like the animal embossed on the cover and there are options of the color too. This is also slightly wider than the above two if you prefer the 6.3” width.
If you prefer a bit structure already to guide you through the thinking/recording/making priorities process, the following ones will work better as the bullet journal is too free form for beginners.
So many choices just in pen and paper section, right? There are more but the above are what I personally have used or borrowed the structure to my digital journal. If it seems overwhelming, I would recommend going with one that looks most appealing to you that you will carry around (they are all pretty good as the fundamentals are to improve the productivity so it is really personal preference which is the best) and try for 3-6 months. You can also research what people like about each one and see what fits with you best.
Let me know in the comment area if you have questions about how to process the items. And then we can talk about the last habit.
