Jim Willis

Personal Stack

Last updated 2023-10-31

I have been working with ChatGPT to identify ways to get these apps to work together better and to help me refine my workflows a bit to keep things buttoned up. This effort has been somewhat successful. Most of what is below is generated by ChatGPT.

Things 3 (Personal)

  • Usage: Managing personal tasks, projects, and areas. Serving as a task inbox and checklist tool.
  • Recommendations: Continue refining your areas and projects, ensuring alignment with personal goals.

Apple Calendar

  • Usage: Tracking family and band schedules, shared with spouse.
  • Recommendations: Implement a color-coding system to easily distinguish between different types of commitments.

Apple Notes

  • Usage: Storing reference documents for personal projects and resource topics.
  • Recommendations: Maintain a clear organizational structure, possibly implementing folders or tags for easy retrieval.

DayOne Journal

  • Usage: Personal reflections, weekly review prompts, and generating todos.
  • Aspirations: Leveraging the journal for self-experimentation and understanding personal patterns of success and failure.
  • Recommendations: Implement a structured reflection process, possibly tagging entries related to successes, failures, and experiments.

Shaarli

  • Usage: Self-hosted Bookmark tool. Supports iOS share sheet extensions and browser plugins. Makes it easy to tag and store web pages that I come across.

Inputs

Email (Personal)

  • Strategy: Similar approach to work email, maintaining inbox zero.
  • Recommendations: Ensure consistency in email management across work and personal accounts.

Readwise Reader

  • Usage: Capturing online reading material and RSS feeds, with highlights for important sections.
  • Workflow: Removing documents that are not highlighted.
  • Recommendations: Regularly review highlighted sections to integrate valuable insights into your productivity system.

Review Processes

Daily Review

  • Routine: Morning review, checking inboxes, prioritizing tasks.
  • Aspirations: Implementing an end-of-day wrap-up routine.
  • Recommendations: Experiment with a short end-of-day routine to reflect on accomplishments and set up for the next day.

Weekly Review

  • Routine: Comprehensive GTD-type review, file and office cleanup, journal entry review.
  • Recommendations: Ensure consistency in weekly reviews, possibly integrating a review of personal projects and commitments.

Additional Insights

Integration Between Systems

  • Usage: Using Things 3 as a central capture device, with calendar integration between work and personal devices via iCal.
  • Recommendations: Maintain clear boundaries between work and personal tasks, ensuring seamless integration where necessary.

Challenges and Areas for Improvement

  • Challenges: Sticking to commitments on personal projects, implementing time-blocking, leveraging journal for self-reflection.
  • Recommendations: Set realistic expectations for personal projects, experiment with time-blocking, and implement a structured reflection process in your journal.

Goals and Priorities

  • Current System: Maintaining a list of goals in the journal.
  • Aspirations: Developing a more formal reflection process, aligning goals with personal values.
  • Recommendations: Implement a quarterly or monthly goal review process, ensuring alignment with personal values and long-term aspirations.