How to Build Your Ultimate Productivity System
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses building a productivity system to help organize your life efficiently. It outlines three 'layers' - the Ron layer for basic life organization (calendar, email, to-do lists, file management), the Hermione layer for consuming content (Kindle, read-later apps, note-taking), and the Dumbledore layer for making connections and building a 'second brain'. The goal is to reduce stress by offloading tasks to a trusted system so your brain doesn't get overwhelmed trying to remember everything.
Takeaways
- 😀 A productivity system helps you use your time intentionally and effectively by offloading tasks from your brain
- 📆 Having a calendar is crucial for remembering commitments and blocking out focused time
- 📥 An email system like 'one touch to inbox zero' helps process emails efficiently
- 📝 A to-do list captures all your tasks so you don't forget things
- 🗂 File management systems like Google Drive provide easy access to all your documents
- 📚 Tools like Kindle and Readwise help capture highlights and insights from books
- 🔖 Instapaper lets you save articles to read later when you have more time
- 📒 Note-taking apps capture random ideas and thoughts for future reference
- 🧠 Building a 'second brain' makes connections between ideas for creativity
- ⚙️ Apps like Todoist, Fantastical, and Roam help implement these systems
Q & A
What are the three types of tasks that our brains handle?
-Type 1 tasks are things our brains do best like creativity, enjoyment, relaxation, etc. Type 2 tasks are things our brains can do but systems can handle more efficiently like keeping track of tasks and calendars. Type 3 tasks are things systems should handle like remembering phone numbers and birthdays.
What are the four components of the 'Ron' layer of a productivity system?
-The four components are: 1) A calendar, 2) An email management system, 3) A to-do list, 4) A file management system.
What is the 'one touch to inbox zero' system?
-It's an email management approach where every email touches your inbox only once. It either goes to your calendar, task manager, note taking app, or read it later app, and then you archive the email.
What app does the author use for capturing tasks and to-do lists?
-The author uses Todoist for capturing all tasks and maintaining his to-do lists across devices.
What is the purpose of the 'Hermione' layer of the productivity system?
-The Hermione layer contains optional modules for people who consume a lot of media. It helps capture insights and information from books, podcasts, articles etc. so those insights aren't forgotten later.
What are the four components of the Hermione layer?
-The four components are: 1) The Kindle app for reading and highlighting books 2) A read it later app like Instapaper 3) An app called Readwise 4) A notes capture app like Apple Notes.
How does the author find interesting articles and content to read?
-The author subscribes to various email newsletters, especially Morning Brew, which surfaces interesting business, finance and tech articles. He shares good articles to his read it later app.
What is the purpose of building a 'second brain'?
-Building a second brain using apps like Roam Research helps you make connections between ideas and information. It acts like a thought partner for creativity rather than just passively storing information.
What are some benefits of having a solid productivity system?
-Benefits include reduced stress and anxiety, prevention of burnout, having to remember fewer things, increased efficiency, and being more intentional with how you spend your time.
What app might the author consider switching to from Roam Research?
-The author mentions he might switch to using Obsidian for building his second brain instead of Roam Research.
Outlines
📆 Setting up a calendar system for scheduling events and time blocking
The first component of a productivity system is a digital calendar app to schedule events, block out intentional time for important tasks, and enable automatic scheduling. A calendar reduces the mental load of remembering commitments and enables focused time on priorities.
📥 Email management for reducing inbox clutter
The second component is an email management system focused on the 'one touch to inbox zero' method - processing each email just once by either scheduling it, assigning it as a task, or archiving relevant information. This avoids using the strained inbox as a task list or place to store articles.
✅ A comprehensive to-do list app for task tracking
The third component is a robust to-do list app (like Todoist) to capture all tasks and intentions that would otherwise occupy mental bandwidth. This enables batching tasks without the anxiety of forgetting things that slip through the cracks.
🗂️ Cloud-based file management system
The fourth component of basic life organization is a cloud-based file management system (like Google Drive) to store information and enable access across devices. This reduces the stress of losing data or struggling to find reference material.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡productivity system
💡calendar
💡to-do list
💡file management system
💡email management
💡building a second brain
💡highlighting
💡read it later app
💡capture app
💡burnout
Highlights
A productivity system helps us do meaningful things efficiently without wasting time or getting stressed.
Your brain is for having ideas, not for storing them.
A calendar takes the stress off by tracking events instead of trying to remember everything.
Unsubscribe from random emails to avoid spam in your inbox.
A to-do list captures tasks so your brain doesn't have to remember everything.
Cloud storage like Google Drive lets you access files anywhere and not worry about hardware failures.
The Hermione layer helps capture insights from books and media to remember key ideas.
Kindle's highlighting feature lets you easily save key passages to revisit later.
Instapaper separates reading articles from finding them so you don't get distracted.
Morning Brew newsletter conveniently aggregates daily business and tech news.
Readwise automatically saves highlights from various apps to a central hub.
Apple Notes is a simple way to capture random notes for later search and review.
The Dumbledore layer builds connections between ideas to spark creativity.
Building a Second Brain surfaces old insights at the right times to generate new ideas.
Good systems reduce anxiety by offloading things from your brain that don't need to be there.
Transcripts
in this video we are talking about how
to build a productivity system and the
first question to start with is why do
you in fact need a productivity system
and really the main reason is so that we
can do the stuff that we want to do we
can do things that are meaningful to us
in an efficient way without wasting our
time and so that we're less stressed out
doing it because then we don't have to
rely on our brain to do things that it's
not designed to do and we can almost
think of this as like a bit of a venn
diagram where we've got the brain and
we've got our system and broadly we can
categorize tasks into one of three
things so type one tasks are things that
our brain itself does best these are
things like creativity and enjoyment and
relaxing and living in the present
moment and all that fun stuff connecting
with other people all of this stuff
totally cool if our brain does the thing
then we've got type 2 types of thing
which is stuff that like we often use
our brain for but that our productivity
system or some kind of system can
probably do a little bit more
efficiently for example things like
keeping on top of tasks keeping on top
of calendars keeping on top of emails
having to use our brain to remember all
of that stuff is really taxing and quite
stressful especially if you have a lot
of stuff to be doing and then thirdly
there is the type 3 stuff the stuff that
we definitely should be using some kind
of system for this generally involves
kind of remembering information that is
not directly connected to the things we
actually care about so for example
memorizing phone numbers is a bit of a
waste of time in a way memorizing a lot
of people's birthdays a bit of a waste
of time you can just outsource that to a
system like a calendar and so really the
idea of a productivity system is well
productivity is using our time
intentionally and effectively and so the
point of having a system for it is so
that our brain doesn't have to do so
much work so anyway in this video we're
going to talk about kind of three
different layers of a productivity
system that you can choose to build if
you feel that it helps you with your
life it certainly helps with mine and
we're going to split that into layer 1
which is ron layer 2 which is hermione
and layer 3 which is dumbledore
so the wrong layer i.e layer one of the
system is all about keeping your life in
order and there are really four things
four different components that you need
in a productivity system in my humble
opinion to kind of get to a place where
your life is reasonably in order let the
feast
begin the first one is a calendar now it
is amazing how many people i know who
don't live their lives based on a
calendar and who are trying to remember
in their own heads all of the
information for like events that they
need to attend a friend invites you for
a birthday party two weeks from now oh
it's cool it's fine i won't write it
down i will just try and remember oh
i've gotta have dinner with my mum next
week it's fine i'm just gonna remember
like our brain is so bad at remembering
these things and one of the quotes that
i always come back to is from david
allen who is one of the world's biggest
productivity gurus who says that your
brain is for having ideas not for
storing them and one of the principles
of productivity that i always come back
to and i have done over the last five
years is that my brain is a dumbass i
want my brain to not have to remember
things that it doesn't need to so feel
free to use a physical calendar if you
really want to but basically everyone in
the world these days uses some kind of
digital calendar usually some kind of
app on your phone apple calendar is good
google calendar is good there are a
bunch of different third party
alternatives the one i personally use is
fantastical this is for example what my
fantastic health looks like earlier
today breakfast with osama and sharina
dashoom same page meeting with angus
table read for this video podcast q a
for the podcast video filming video
filming and then i'm going to cambridge
for some talks this evening i have an
orthodontist appointment tomorrow i've
got this whole retreat thing that i'm
going to in the evening and basically
for the last several years i have been
running my life based on my calendar and
this is amazing this like takes an
enormous amount of stress off my
shoulders because if something is not in
the calendar then it doesn't exist like
as soon as a friend says to me hey do
you want to do this thing on this date
i'll look at my calendar and be like let
me have a look yep and i'll just add it
there there and then so that i'm not
trying to remember like what was that
thing that like catherine invite me to
et cetera et cetera so a calendar is
really good for remembering stuff that
you need to do but it's also really good
for actively intentionally blocking out
time for the things that you actually
want to do so for example for me i know
that every morning i want to block out
three hours to work on my book and so
there's a blockchain in my calendar and
then i know that oh okay cool when i get
to the morning at nine o'clock this is
the thing that i'm doing i block out
time for exercise i block at times for
sports event for social events friday
nights i want to host a dinner therefore
i'll block that timeout in my calendar
and then the third and final really good
reason to use a calendar is that you can
then use automatic scheduling apps like
calendly or tinycal or savvycal or any
of these others and what that does is it
generates a link and that link connects
to your calendar and then if you want to
arrange a meeting with someone or a zoom
call with someone you met on the
internet or even a hangout with friends
you could if you wanted to save the
whole back and forth of scheduling
especially if it's with email especially
if it's a work thing by just sending
them a calendar link and then they'd be
able to kind of book a time in your
calendar now i use this a lot for kind
of booking interviews for book research
and all this kind of stuff and it's just
super super helpful and it saves a lot
of time and again means that my own
brain doesn't have to kind of do the
work in arranging all these things all
right the next thing every productivity
system needs at the wrong level is some
kind of system for email management most
of us use something like gmail that's
totally fine you can use an app like
apple mail i use an app called
superhuman which is very good but it's
expensive you have to pay for it but
it's it's pretty solid now there's an
approach to email that i really like
from my friend thiago forte who is again
productivity expert and it's called one
touch to inbox zero and basically the
idea behind this method is that every
email touches your inbox only once if
it's something that requires a calendar
event then it goes into your calendar
and then you archive the email if it's a
to-do if it's something that needs
action it goes into your task manager
more on that in a minute and then you
archive the email if it's information
that you need to reference at some point
you put it into a note-taking app and if
it's an article or something that you
might want to read it goes into your
read it later app and we'll talk much
more about those further in the video
there's a few general tips that apply to
emails as well which again are
completely game-changing for
productivity if you haven't done them
already the first one is to just
unsubscribe from all these random emails
like amazon or like sales or like shops
and like all of this stuff is pretty
unnecessary we don't want to treat our
inbox like kind of this place where any
kind of marketer from any kind of
company can just spam stuff into it one
thing that you can actually do and this
is what i do is that i've created a
smart filter in gmail which searches the
content of every email for the word
unsubscribe now if the word unsubscribe
is in an email it is probably not an
important email because no one
no real person is going to email you
with the word unsubscribe in their thing
whereas if you're getting like a
marketing communication or a newsletter
or whatever and it has the word
unsubscribe in it you can just
automatically make it skip your inbox so
it doesn't kind of clog up the inbox the
other thing you should do is that
ideally only have one place to deal with
all your email so for example when i was
at university i forwarded all my
university email to my personal gmail
and also all my personal gmail to my
personal gmail because gmail has just
way better features than whatever hermes
app that cambridge university was using
but really the main point is that we
want to avoid using our inbox our email
inbox as a place to find articles to
read or even worse using our email inbox
as a to-do list which brings us on to
component number three of a decent
productivity system and that is to have
some kind of to-do list now again david
allen's advice from getting things done
comes in here your brain is for having
ideas not for holding them and if you
don't write something down in a to-do
list your brain is very unlikely to
remember the thing you could do this on
pen and paper if you really want to i
sometimes do like my daily planner i use
my essentially productivity part-time
productivity notebook and in that i ask
myself one question which is what is the
most important thing i need to do today
that's my daily highlight and every
every day i try and fill the end to be
like okay today the single most
important thing i want to do is x and
then i have a my to-do list this is just
stuff that i might do later in the day
and i like calling it a might do list
because it just takes a little bit of
the pressure off me and it means i don't
have to stress too much if i don't get
all those things done so that tends to
be what i do on a kind of day-by-day
basis when i figure out what am i doing
for the day but the actual app that i
use to track all of the other stuff is
todoist i've tried a bunch of different
apps over the years so essentially what
i do is that if i need to add a task to
my to-do list then usually i'll input it
on my phone or on my macbook if i happen
to be on my macbook and you'll see on my
iphone that i've literally got todoist
as like one of the primary things in my
dock so if i do think of anything at all
anytime a task pops into my mind i think
okay this is not gonna happen until i
write it down and i just open up to-do
list and i write down whatever the task
is so for example i know right now i
need to find bow tie
from cambridge flat cool now that's
written down now i i will get to it at
some point similarly i use this for
shopping list i use it for any thank you
emails i need to send as soon as
anything pops into mind it just goes
straight into the to-do list app either
on my phone or on my macbook and then
whenever i've got some time where i feel
like you know what i'm gonna batch go
through my to-do list because i've got
half an hour and nothing better to do
then i'll just go through and just bang
my bang i'll delete the ones that are no
longer relevant like oh should i get all
plant smoothies probably maybe not screw
it doesn't need to go i'll just take
that off or delete it but for something
i actually need to do it's great because
then i can batch and do these things
like i need to send a bunch of thank you
emails and so i've just batched them all
into todoist knowing that at some point
i'll get around to sending all these
emails in one go something i like to do
is sort of got this someday maybe list
for like you know work stuff someday
maybe it's like personal stuff these are
things i'd like to do at some point
rollerblading archery hunting glamping
mountain biking treehouse clamping
retreat all these different things like
when i have an idea for something cool i
just chuck it into the someday maybe
list this is again a tip from david
allen and that means that i know at some
point when it comes to planning my next
holiday i'll just be able to look at
that and think you know what the idea of
kite surfing sounds pretty cool let me
google and figure out where i can
potentially go kite surfing now at this
point the mistake that the vast majority
of people seem to make with their to-do
list at least from all the people that
i've coached in productivity is actually
not having 100 coverage so for example
if you have a to-do list and it only
covers 90 of your things rather than 100
you're going to get into one of these
problems i can't remember what i've
forgotten so like the point of the to-do
list is so that you don't forget things
but if 10 of things are in your brain
you won't know what that 10 is and so
you're always going to be stressed
thinking i know my to-do list has most
of the things i need to do but it
doesn't have all the things i need to do
therefore i still need to remember my
brain to do stuff and then it just adds
this sort of low low level tension and
stress to every single thing that we do
in life anyway final thing in our wrong
level of productivity system is some
kind of file management system again
this is like super basic stuff but again
there are so many people who have
literally coached in productivity who
don't have a decent file management
system generally what you want is some
kind of cloud storage now the one that i
use even though i'm an apple fanboy for
absolutely everything i still use google
drive as my cloud storage system of
choice i've got my personal google drive
and i've got the business google drive
and i've got the folders on my mac so
for example i can look in my drive i can
look at all of my business stuff all of
my med school stuff let's look at
pre-clinical medicine let's look at
first here these are all the notes that
i had in first year across all my
different subjects let's look at home
that's physiology essays examples
documents all of this stuff it is all in
my google drive and i you know my my
whole life is basically on google drive
photos memories files all of the things
on google drive so that if i ever lose
my computer if my hard disk discover
goes if it ever gets stolen if i want to
upgrade computers it's so easy i know
every single thing is on google drive
and these days like searching functions
and these things are so good that
if i know that i need to find a certain
file i'll just search my google drive
for it because i know it's probably in
there somewhere all right so that was
the wrong layer of the productivity
system for essential life management the
four components that in my humble
opinion every single person needs to
survive in this world that we live in so
that your brain is not super super
stressed out trying to remember all
these random details the next layer up
of the productivity system is an
optional extra and this is for people
that consume a lot of books honestly
don't you two read and this is where the
hermione level of the productivity
system comes in and basically the idea
here is that it's a layer above it's
like additional modules that you can add
to your basic productivity system if you
want if you consume a lot of media media
meaning books or audio books or podcasts
or videos or anything like that that you
might want to remember later this layer
of the productivity system is about
taking notes it's about capturing
information that resonates with us from
the stuff that we consume and again this
is for people who you know if you've had
that feeling where you read all these
things or you listen to all these things
and you have all these insights but you
don't write them down and then like two
months later you've forgotten what you
read in that book that potentially
changed your life that's the point of
this level of the productivity system
and here we have another four modules of
the system so the first one is the
kindle app yes there are other ways to
read there's apple books and stuff but
like to be honest i've tested them all
and i found the kindle app to be by far
the best one you don't even need to have
a physical kindle although that's one of
the most life-changing products i do
recommend yeah the kindle app is
absolutely sick i tend to read most
things on ebook format rather than
physical book format but it's not just
reading that i can do on the kindle app
it is also highlighting and highlighting
on the kindle lab just is an absolute
breeze and what i can do is that once
i've read a book i can always look at my
highlights in the kindle notebook and
then if i need to revisit things that i
learned from a book or a quote from a
paranormal romance book that i
particularly enjoyed i can just open up
my highlights and i can see everything
that's previously resonated with me
alright so that was the kindle app next
we have a read it later app now the one
that i've been using for the last
several years is called instapaper it's
free and essentially the point of
instapaper is that anytime you're
reading something or you want to read an
article on the internet if you don't
want to read it there and then on your
phone or on your browser you can just
share it into something like instapaper
and then it will just show up on your
list and now again when i have a spare
moment if i'm commuting if i'm on a tube
or whatever i'll just open up insta
paper usually on my phone and i'll just
flick through some of the articles and
instant paper and i'll be like oh okay
cool this one looks interesting i'm
improving ourselves to death this is a
bit of a critique about self-help and i
can look through that article i can
highlight stuff as well it's all very
handy and it's just a great way of
separating the reading of articles from
coming across the articles because often
i find that you know if i'm on the
toilet for like three minutes and i'm
scrolling through twitter and i come
across an interesting article if i read
it there and then it might take 10
minutes and then i'm on the toilet for
three hours and that's not very good or
if i'm in the middle of something and
someone recommends an article i know i
want to read it at some point but i know
i don't want to read it there and then
i'll just send it straight to insta
paper and trust that at some point i
will get around to reading that article
and again this separation from
separation of things like if i'm trying
to focus on something that i genuinely
care about but then i get i get derailed
by an article recommendation and go down
this wikipedia rabbit holes trying to
figure out all these conspiracy theories
that ends up actually taking time away
from the thing that i actually care
about and kind of stopping me from kind
of being productive and being
intentional with how i'm spending my
time and because time is our most
valuable non-renewable resource it's the
only thing we can't make more of it's
like it always felt a bit like oh i know
i've carved out this time to work on
this thing that's important to me but
i've just been stolen away by being
distracted by this article insta paper
or something like that completely solves
that problem now when it comes to
actually finding articles and
interesting things to read that will
level up your life and like things you
actually care about people always ask me
like how do you find stuff to read and
for me it's because i subscribe to a
bunch of email newsletters and one of
the main ones that i read every single
day is called morningbrew who are very
kindly sponsoring this video now
morningbrew is a completely free daily
email newsletter that lands in your
inbox every morning or in your read it
later app if you've set up a forwarding
rule which is what i've done basically
it gets you up to speed on what's
happening in the world of tech and
finance and business and if you care
about those three things like i do then
it's just a fantastic newsletter and
it's also completely free so you might
as well sign up it takes most people
around five minutes to go through it and
catch up to date with the news usually i
skim through in about two and a half
minutes flat while i'm waiting for my
morning coffee to brew and if there's
any interesting articles from that i'll
send those articles directly to my read
it later app as well and then usually
read them later on in the day on the
toilet and that means every day i'm up
to date on these things that i care
about like tech and finance and business
and a lot of those topics then generate
interesting content ideas that i can
talk about in the podcast or in youtube
videos or anything else or just
generally keeping up to date with
interesting things in the world it's
also great because it gives you
interesting and in-depth coverage around
weird things like elon musk how he's
financing his twitter buy or like the
recent crypto crash which is massively
affected by encrypted portfolio but i've
got the information from morning brew
because i trust them as a legit non-fake
news source and all it is is take out a
few minutes out of my day to read these
interesting articles rather than be
keeping up to date with the whole 24
hours news cycle so yeah if you're
interested in tech finance business any
of that kind of stuff then you might as
well subscribe to this newsletter it is
completely free they don't charge a
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check check out the link in the video
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morning brew for sponsoring this video
and for making my personal life much
better alright component 3 of the
hermione layer is an app called read
wise i'll put an affiliate link down
below they're not sponsoring this video
but if you click the link you'll get an
extra two-month trial rather than just a
one-month trial and i'll get a bit of a
kickback if you sign up i've been
recommending read-wise for the last like
three years now read wise is incredible
it's like this little hub that takes in
details like it takes in your kindle
highlights and your insta paper
highlights and a few other sources and
it puts them all in one place and it
means you can then export those
highlights to apps like notion or rom
more on those in layer three and it's
really handy because now all of this
stuff gets automated anytime i see a
passage in kindle or an instant paper
that resonates with me where i think oh
i want to save this passage all i have
to do is highlight it and i trust i just
trust that read-wise will behind the
scenes sort it all out again before read
was existed before we had this kind of
thing what we'd have to do is if you
found a passage that resonated with you
you'd have to write it down you have to
highlight it you'd have to store it
somewhere you have to figure out where
you're trying to store it it becomes a
real faff and again coming back to a
point what is the point of a
productivity system people always ask
it's to get [ __ ] off of your own brain
like i now don't need to remember all
these things because the system is
remembering it for me and then i trust
that the system will resurface it as and
when i need to access those highlights
again and then finally the fourth
component of this sort of system is some
sort of capture app for notes now again
i've tried a bunch of systems over the
years but actually the one that i've
come back to most often is actually
apple notes and essentially anytime i
need to remember something for example
if i'm taking a note while i'm on the
toilet or if i'm on the train and
listening to an audiobook and i want to
take notes on something i'll just open
up apple notes and i'll write it down
and i'll trust that if i need to
resurface that thing sometime further
down the line it will always be in my
apple notes and it will always be
something that i could potentially
search for at this point honestly i've
got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of notes in my apple notes and then i
just trust that they're there like i
know i don't need to worry about doing
stuff with them as soon as they come in
i don't need to worry about an elaborate
system for this what i care about is
having the minimum viable level of
organization the minimum viable level of
systems and structure to again reduce my
own strain reduce my own stress even
often ask like oh how do you seem to not
burn out how do you manage like honestly
like having a decent system is a massive
cure for burnout because you just trust
the system you trust the system to do
stuff you don't have to again have that
low level of anxiety running in your
actual brain all right so that was the
hermione layer of the productivity
system and now the final layer that if
you want to layer on top of that you can
if you really want to is the dumbledore
layer which relates to a concept called
building a second brain you might have
heard me talk about building a second
brain before it is a book it is a system
it's a course written and done by my
friend thiago forte and it's like a
pretty game changing productivity system
because the idea like level one the run
the wrong layer level whatever you want
to call it was about just being able to
organize our life and kind of get by
level two was about capturing insights
from all the stuff that we read and
consume and level three this dumbledore
level is all about making connections
and in a way using our productivity
system for creativity rather than just
for storage and in a way if you can
actually build your own second brain
this ends up acting as a thought partner
for you i've been using this system
since like mid 2019 now it's been three
years and i've found so many ways in
which particularly for writing my book
but also for creating content and for
writing newsletters and for doing
podcasts the information i've captured
into my second brain using an app called
rome the one i use these days although i
might switch to obsidian more on that
later but capturing all this information
into an app called rome research means
that it just sort of resurfaces and if
you want to find out more about this
dumbledore level then check out this
video over here which is my book club
episode all about breaking down the
c-o-d-e component of the building a
second brain system and that will give
you a step-by-step guide on how to apply
it in your own life so thank you so much
for watching check out this video over
here and i'll see in the next one
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