My favorite aspect of Making It All Work is the way it lays out distinct organizing categories, work flows, and "getting perspective". Both the Areas of Focus and the Organizing Categories were influential, but the Organizing Categories really changed how I thought about stuff. Recently, I've sort of settled on a system to use on-line systems (I use EverNote and Appigo ToDo) to combine Organizing Categories and AoF along with actions. I thought I'd describe how I do it, and get feedback to make it better.
Each Organizing Category is a Notebook Stack in Evernote. I have an underscore in each one so they float to the top over notebook name I used earlier. So I have "_Inbox", "_Incubating", "_Outcomes", "_Reference", and "_Support". That's it. I have one layer of notebooks beneath each (Actually, "_Outcomes" is a notebook not a stack). The key thing is that nothing is ever both reference and support. Nothing ever need to go in two stacks at one time. Ever.
I don't have an "_Actions" stack. More on that in a bit.
Each "AoF" gets a tag. My areas of focus are "family", "health", "finance", "work", "explore", "relationships", and "self development". These top level AoF also have a leading "_", to mark them as special tags. There are lots of other tags, but those are the key ones for AoF.
Actions are kept in Appigo ToDo, which works on all my platforms. It also supports tags and contexts, so I have AoF tags as well as contexts. Happily, Evernote now has direct links to individual notes. If for example, I have a next action to file for reimbursement on a health claim for my daughter, I can tag is with "_family", "_health", and "_finance", keep it under the "_support" stack, and link to it from the ToDo App (context @home) When it's done, I simply move it to the _reference stack.
I also use saved searches in Evernote. For example my "Family Support" saved search is "stack:_support tag:_family", which brings up all my evernote notes supporting that AoF. This is fantastic for weekly review, since I can collect support materials in evernote and turn them into actions during the weekly review, when I am actually intentionally choosing to focus on one area at at time.
One area that's a bit of a mystery is organized materials that don't fit in any area of focus. I have old driver's licenses scanned into Evernote just for the hell of it, but what is that? Do I need a new AoF called "_mundanity"? I could just leave it without an AoF tag, except that I currently use a Evernote saved search ("-tag:_*") to identify any notes that don't yet have an AoF tag so I can make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback.
Each Organizing Category is a Notebook Stack in Evernote. I have an underscore in each one so they float to the top over notebook name I used earlier. So I have "_Inbox", "_Incubating", "_Outcomes", "_Reference", and "_Support". That's it. I have one layer of notebooks beneath each (Actually, "_Outcomes" is a notebook not a stack). The key thing is that nothing is ever both reference and support. Nothing ever need to go in two stacks at one time. Ever.
I don't have an "_Actions" stack. More on that in a bit.
Each "AoF" gets a tag. My areas of focus are "family", "health", "finance", "work", "explore", "relationships", and "self development". These top level AoF also have a leading "_", to mark them as special tags. There are lots of other tags, but those are the key ones for AoF.
Actions are kept in Appigo ToDo, which works on all my platforms. It also supports tags and contexts, so I have AoF tags as well as contexts. Happily, Evernote now has direct links to individual notes. If for example, I have a next action to file for reimbursement on a health claim for my daughter, I can tag is with "_family", "_health", and "_finance", keep it under the "_support" stack, and link to it from the ToDo App (context @home) When it's done, I simply move it to the _reference stack.
I also use saved searches in Evernote. For example my "Family Support" saved search is "stack:_support tag:_family", which brings up all my evernote notes supporting that AoF. This is fantastic for weekly review, since I can collect support materials in evernote and turn them into actions during the weekly review, when I am actually intentionally choosing to focus on one area at at time.
One area that's a bit of a mystery is organized materials that don't fit in any area of focus. I have old driver's licenses scanned into Evernote just for the hell of it, but what is that? Do I need a new AoF called "_mundanity"? I could just leave it without an AoF tag, except that I currently use a Evernote saved search ("-tag:_*") to identify any notes that don't yet have an AoF tag so I can make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback.
