How I Never Forget a Single Task (Todoist + Notion Workflow)

Key Takeaways

this is how my to-do list on to-do list looked like when I woke up yesterday morning this is how it looked like yesterday afternoon at around 5 PM and finally right before I went to bed and this is how I sleep knowing I never forget a single task because I have a GTD system I can 100 rely on productivity just kidding I never snore let's get started hi friends welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is Jeff and as a human being I tend to forget a lot of things if I relied on memory alone after reading David Allen's book getting things done a few years back I've since implemented my own version of his GTD system so in this video I'm going to First share the three productivity principles I took away from his book capture process and review before going through the todoist and notion workflow I follow religiously every single day starting with the first principle of productivity capture in his book Alan introduces the key idea that our brains are made for having ideas and not for storing them the way I like to think about it is like a computer for every unfinished project half form idea or new commitment our brain starts a background process which takes up Ram or mental energy the solution is to capture thoughts that instantly enter our mind every thought that even has the potential to remain an unclosed Loop or background process gets captured and stored externally and for me that external storage is todoist for example the instant you realize you've run out of toilet paper you can add buy toilet paper onto your to-do app of choice because let's be honest we all bring our phones with us to the bathroom no matter how disgusting science has proven it to be the app you choose to use really does not matter for me the free version of todoist is more than enough for my niece to instantly capture my thoughts I would literally unlock my phone press the plus arrow to the top right corner and start typing it even has natural language built in so if I type something like take probiotics every day every day it would remind me daily as a recurring task another personal example is when I go to the gym for some reason I actually get a lot of good ideas for work and for my videos when I'm working out I think there's some research that shows that our creativity gets a boost when we're not focused on any specific thing in particular for example when we're driving or in the shower I actually had the idea for the thumbnail of this video when I was resting in between sets of deadlifts of 500 kilograms so when I was resting I had the idea I took out my phone and just typed in thumbnail is me blurry with my hand stretched out the act of writing it down immediately helped free up mental processing power by closing down the background program as opposed to me forgetting the idea when I got home and you know the terrible feeling when you know you forgot something important and you just can't seem to remember it I would have experienced that for the rest of the day so yeah capture everything quick note before moving on to the second step in his book Alan originally had five productivity principles capture clarify organize reflect and engage but I've simplified it down to capture process and reflect in a nutshell the process step is the downstream systems that deal with the incoming data from my todoist inbox put another way now that you've captured your ideas what are the actual implications of those thoughts let's go through a few specific scenarios back to the thumbnail idea example after I get home from the gym and sit down to work I naturally see the to-do's entries on my phone I get reminded of the thumbnail idea so I opened the corresponding video planning page in notion input blurry face with my hand stretched out under the thumbnail section and only then can I safely check off the task in todoist because I now know for a fact I will not forget about this idea since it's in the video planning page or what if I had a todoist entry saying something like find a time to eat with Raphael a friend of mine visiting from Beijing in that case instead of going into the notion platform I'd open Google Calendar find a time that works for both of us block that time off before I can mark that task as completed recurring events is somewhat of a special case for me for example I remind myself to get a haircut every other Sunday technically it's a Time specific task so it should go into my calendar but since I don't care what time of day I get it morning afternoon evening I leave it as a recurring task in todoist and on those Sundays if I have 30 minutes I see on my phone I'll just go but what if the task is not so simple what if I entered research new video idea on email etiquette Alan actually addresses this problem with his two minute rule anything you can do in less than two minutes do it right away anything more than two minutes file it into an action items list for review later for those of you who watch my notion videos you know that for me my action items list is basically my weekly agenda page email etiquette is actually something I'm very passionate about I want to start brainstorming right away so I put it under my daily to do list to quickly recap the process principle is the act of putting those captured thoughts and ideas into their proper places buying toilet paper into the grocery shopping list video ideas into the notion planning page time specific events into calendar slots for the final review step I do a version of how Alan explains it in his book instead of going through my plans once a week I actually review my weekly agenda page in notion three times a day and once more at the end of every week first time in the morning before I start to do any work just so I know roughly what actions I need to complete for the day second time during the afternoon to make sure I'm on track to complete those actions or if I'm not on track whether I should reshuffle priorities because new tasks and ideas are coming in and once more at night before I go to bed to Archive the completed action items and move any unfinished tasks to tomorrow or for later that week every Sunday evening I review the weekly action items I haven't completed yet in this case I've yet to start reading Austin cleon's book keep going so I need to make a decision whether I want to commit to this for next week if not this goes straight into the archive page here and I forget about it if yes I simply copy this and throw it into the weekly agenda page for next week if you're interested in seeing how I set these notion Pages up make sure to check out my video Linked In the description below I just want to emphasize again the specific apps you use don't really matter according to the poll I sent out last week only like 20 of you use todoist for example as long as you're able to capture and offload new ideas and new thoughts onto an external system you can trust that system as opposed to relying only on your brain I hope this video has given you some sort of inspiration on how to start and maintain your own GTD system check out this playlist over here on how I set up my notion workspaces for maximum productivity see you on the next video and in the meantime have a great one