Life Management Flows

The reason for this page is to help me get a better picture of how I manage information in my life. I seem to have apps galore and varying services I use to store information. I keep running to the next shiniest thing so it’s time to work out how to best manage everything.

Things I need apps & services for:

Long-term information storage
Short-term/read-it-later storage
Journaling
Diary/Calendar
Reminders/to-do list
Learning - note-taking, highlights in books, etc

Initial assumptions

There’s no app that does all of the above perfectly and is the answer for everyone. Similarly, there’s no need to have separate apps for each and every little aspect of your life - you’d end up with hundreds otherwise.

Different data types and reasons for logging it have different needs. For example, long term storage won’t need to be accessed frequently, but needs a powerful search function for recalling data. I think it would also benefit from having a robust back linking feature so you can start to grow and connect ideas together. Let’s look at the needs of each data type in that case to see if we can group anything or at least have an idea on what to look out for when we’re “app hunting”.

I will be doing most of my ‘data consumption’ on the iPad and PC so will need to be able to access my stuff on both seamlessly. This makes me lean towards web-based services, but you then risk them being shut down the very next day. Maybe a platform that allows backup to a cloud service, or a platform that saves information in a standard format like markdown.

Long-term Information

As mentioned above, we need to be able to search it well and be able to link things together. We don’t want to have to worry about storage memory limitations either and we don’t want to have it stored in a service that might be dropped by the provider (like google likes to do with things they come out with).

Good storage size
Search feature
Back-linking
Robust service that’ll stay around for years

Short-term/Read It Later

I am constantly reading new articles and somewhere in the back of my mind, I judging whether this is something that I have time to absorb now, or something I’d like to look into in more detail later. I need an app/service that allows me to save articles, blog posts etc somewhere for later retrieval and processing. If needed, this would then be sent to long-term information.

Good storage size
Quick & easy to capture on any device
Ability to sort by media type
Multi-platform (eg. Phone, iPad, PC, etc)
A way of reviewing and processing before it becomes clogged and is a 2nd version of long-term
Maybe something that is here to stay but it is only for short-term so not as critical

Journaling

I’ve always wanted to journal on a regular basis for two main reasons. Firstly, as a way to document my life so I have something to look back on in years to come. I am always conscious that I do not remember a lot of my life and it seems to be passing me by more and more quickly these days. If I think back to what I did in 2021 for example, I’d struggle to name 5 major things. The second reason for journaling is to free my mind, take a breath in life, and organise my thoughts. Some of the greatest stoics controlled their life and thoughts by getting it out of their heads and onto paper (think Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations).

Frictionless and fun to journal
Ability to add photos as a visual reminder
Ability to export should I move journaling platforms

Diary/Calendar

I seem to always have an empty diary but say that I am crazy busy at work and “never have the time” for things in my personal life. Is any of this actually true? I’d like to have a calendar that let’s me easily enter tasks, events, time-blocking tasks to see. I like to know what’s coming up, otherwise I fill my time with meaningless crap and waste my time.

Be cross platform (iPhone, iPad, PC)
Alerts for upcoming events

Reminders/to-do lists

Similar to the above I guess so it would be nice if this section can link to the above section. I like to be able to add reminders on the fly, when out & about, get notifications based on time, location, etc.. Be able to distinguish between work reminders and personal reminders. It would also be good to have recurring reminders as well as subtasks to break down large to-dos.

Learning - General Note Taking

Not really sure what this category requires here. I guess it’s for anything that doesn’t fit in the above sections? I am someone that always like to learn and reflect on previous events. I am keen on personal development, leadership, etc so I need to be able to catalogue that. I guess this section may be the vessel that moves short-term/read-it-later into long-term information. If this is to be the vessel, it must integrate into those two sections, otherwise it becomes it’s own storage area detached from both. I like the idea of GoodNotes but I’m concerned that it would be detached from my long-term vault. I guess this type of app needs to be the one that allows me to take my reading of articles & information and allow me to make notes, etc in order to distill the information and actually absorb what it’s telling me. Whether or not I then type up the notes for long term storage, or just file the GoodNotes as PDFs, or delete them doesn’t really matter?

Does any of it actually matter?

You just need to stick to one method/process. The ideal length of time is 90 days and DON’T switch in between. How can you know if it suits you best if you haven’t given it enough time? This makes me wonder whether I am over complicating all of the above and should just stick to something like Notion. I’m sure that Notion will be able to cover 90% of my needs. I think that the worry comes from having to change to a different platform should it not work out. I don’t want to put 3 months worth of information into a platform to find that it isn’t working out and now I can’t easily export it all to a new platform…

So which platform hits the 90% mark?

We need to apply Gall’s Law where we can:

”All complex system that work, evolved from simpler systems that worked. If you want to build a complex system that work, build a simpler system first and then improve it over time”

That’s all for Part 1 - stay tuned for part 2