Capture - Find a system that works for YOU. A system where you can capture all your ideas, tasks, projects, and relevant information. Preferably a system that allows you to overview and review all that information on a regular basis. Configure - "Care more about how you actually organize this information that you are capturing". Structure the information that you have captured, whether it is by categories or by role, etc. Your captured information needs an available structure. Availability in this case refers to the possibility to understand what is happening next. Organizing your information will allow you to avoid cognitive overloads since you get a "gestalt" of what is going on in your life. Control - Multi-scale planning (Planning on different levels) -> Quarterly, weekly, daily planning. Quarterly - What is the plan/events/tasks etc. for the next quarter of the year? Weekly - Look through your quarterly plan and find out what needs to happen this week and on which day. (Example shown at 8:44) Daily - Look at your weekly plan and schedule the hours of your day. By utilizing multi-scale planning you are the one taking control of your time instead of letting the time take control of you. Cal's system: Trello - For tasks and commitments. Google documents - Tracking plans (e.g. quarterly planning, podcast planning) Time-block planner (See www.timeblockplanner.com) and a text document on his desktop - Schedule the day, capture ideas, notes, information, etc. throughout the day. Shutdown ritual (at end of the day) - Look through his time blocker and text document to review and configure the information that was captured throughout the day, and put the relevant information into his system. Weekly review - Configure the upcoming week.
Hello Cal, fan of Deep Work here. I've moved my Trello boards into Obsidian (since you use it as well) with a kanban plugin, it helped consolidate projects into a centralized location, easier to go through the CCC process you mentioned. Along with linking capabilities, took my process to a whole other level. Blessed by your content, keep it up!
I’d like to do this but I can’t imagine writing down all this stuff. Maybe if I was getting paid to organize.. I’ll go with your “do less.” Thank you for all your hard work and excellent suggestions!
17:42 Yeah, i was so poor at doing a Triage/80/20 process that i was planning like i had 30h in my day, just putting X amount of more time for this or that. And ignoring things like sleep and hunger.
This video is so concise and thorough especially when explaining your system. Also showing visuals really helps to get your head around it, especially if you never really learnt how to plan ahead like myself. Thankyou very much. Extremely helpful.👍
I have a request: your music is fine but could you consider making the volume lower Reason being that the speakers on a few mobile devices get damaged or distort with the music at the volume that is correct for best listening to your voice. A few channels do this but hoping you'll consider changing it Thanks!
12:54 I'm usually terrible at stopping, when i'm in flow state i want to get everything done or do as much possible so i frequently have a chaotic sleep, frequently passing out with work in hands and waking up and starting at random hours so my schedule gets out of control. It's hard for me to remember there is a tomorrow, a week, and think strategically cause i'm so narrow minded in being tactic, cause the present moment is easier to control.
I find my system falling apart whenever I try to allot specific hours. Between some chronic illnesses and a pregnancy, my energy levels have been all over the place, with uncontrollable napping at unpredictable intervals. Time blocking just doesn't give me the flexibility I need, and I freeze up figuring out how to rearrange time blocks or add things to a backlog, instead of taking a more fluid approach and just seeing that certain things get done on certain days.
I like messenger for capturing, sending messages to myself. I can have it on the PC and on the phone and it's really easy to send and share things to myself
Question: you did not specify _when_ you do your daily planning. It's sort of implied that this is done daily, but I can also see value in doing the daily planning before the start of a week. Thanks!
Just found your channel, I’m super excited to watch your content. What I’ve watch so far has been extremely helpful! Thank you so much for sharing your ideas! Already subscribed, will be liking, commenting, and sharing. 🤙
Cal, I've been following your work for quite a long time. I have come in and out from the deep life in the last 5 years. Do you have any remarks on this observation of mine that trauma has something to do with shallowness? I want to add another observation, I come from a least developed country; there is a subtle but constant anxiety that lives deep inside to compare and move up the ladder; this is also a predicament in going deep. I would love to hear your thoughts on these. Thanks!
16:20 But just like an Player or a Soldier, to make this work you need the discipline to follow your plan and not switch things without conideration, don't rest when you should be working or work when you should rest, and assign a proper time for stuff. Maybe you need 3 days to decelarate and think about your life more calmly instead of 6h, do that and come back to work. And you need an adaptable plan, a rigid schedule is fine if you're not a doctor or firefighter. "Wait, i can't deal with that emergency right now, my time is blocked" they don't that, or "don't talk to me in this blocked time" said no ER Doctor ever. Okay, i'm sure they have some system to delegate and rest time but In jobs like that expect to be interrupted constantly, context switch is part of their lives, and they need flexible planning and the ability to focus immediately on a new situation. I think to be a better Planner is the crux of it all, It's the source of discipline, time and productivity, this ability to envision the future and effectively breakdown problem. Following a plan is not hard you breakdown enough. Everything comes to you ability to organize and store your thinking effectively and to creatively solve problems (think Batching, Triage and 80/20).
Hey Cal, thank you so much for always giving such good content. Is there a book about your method of organization? If there is not, it would be great to be able to read it to have your teachings at hand to apply them. Greetings from Mexico!
Cal- i work somewhere in which I cannot get approval to spend money on software tools. In order to attempt something like Trello with what's available to me, I was thinking of making a chart in PowerPoint in a shared drive with the team accessing and seeing projects deliverables and timelines. Thoughts?
This content is a marvel. A book I read with similar themes was a seminal point in my journey. "Dominating Your Clock: Strategies for Professional and Personal Success" by Anthony Rivers
I find that Cal makes incredibly long videos to demonstrate points that could be done using 1/10th of the time. Too many repetitive ideas. Don't get me wrong, the ideas are great and worth sharing but they need to be summarized in 3-5 min videos.
For me tbh, talking about these Productivity stuffs are complicated and I think the concepts somewhat need over-explanation / over-communication. If you have been brainstorming and obsessed with productivity, you will encounter many challenges in the application of concepts in contrast to the promising theory behind it. So I think it is somewhat reasonable to over-communicate the concept.
One method of time management that really helps be more productive is to avoid watching these long drawn out videos that don’t lead to any useful concepts
4 mintues in to a time management talk he has said nothing new or original. therefore he has wasted 1/5 of your time. BS squared.8 minutes in now and its just rambling..please save your time by not slogging through this word salad.
17:42 Yeah, i was so poor at doing a Triage/80/20 process that i was planning like i had 30h in my day, just putting X amount of more time for this or that. And ignoring things like sleep and hunger.