Whenever I teach a session on attention and time management, analytical reading, or note-taking, I get questions about the system I actually use. So, here it is. 

I have a bad memory, but most people don’t know it. For years, I would get really frustrated with myself for forgetting things, and I would envy people that seemed to have excellent and clear recall. At some point, I decided to find a solution to the problem and stop lamenting a lack of natural ability. Through that process, I unlocked a different ability to structure and organize my thoughts by leveraging external tools. As I write this in 2024, I no longer think of myself as someone with a bad memory. I’ve built an offboard brain that not only reliably categories my notes and to-dos, but has also notably improved my recall. 

My system is dynamic. I have my core tools, but I’m always tweaking and refining. This is my system I’m using as of April 2024.

I build my system on a few key principles:

• I have to be able to access things quickly. If there’s lag in the system when I need to enter or pull information, I need to adjust.
• I have to be able to rely on my system. If information isn’t in the right place, if it isn’t syncing correctly, or if there’s concern that something was inadvertently deleted, I need to adjust. 
• I have to know where information lives. If I can’t track how a piece of information moved from one system or location to another, I need to adjust.
• I have to enjoy using the system. If I don’t derive joy and satisfaction from the system, I need to adjust.

And with that, here are the tools I use and a brief description of how I use them:

Obsidian is my offboard brain, sometimes also referred to as a second brain. If there’s something I need to remember, it needs to either be written in an Obsidian note or referenced in an Obsidian note. I appreciate the fact that Obsidian prioritizes files (my notes) over reliance on a particular app. This means that Obsidian could suddenly cease to exist and all of my files would be preserved, as they are moveable files in markdown format. Every call, meeting, and work detail of importance is logged here. I use a few plugins that allow me to sync with other systems, and I pay a small monthly fee to have Obsidian sync across all of my devices. The power of Obsidian is the linking system, which allows me to seamlessly link notes together. 

Todoist is my task management system. If I have a task that needs to get done, it’s almost certainly in Todoist. I have shortcuts and automations setup in Obsidian, Slack, and Gmail that allow me to easily sync tasks into Todoist. I enjoy that Todoist can be very basic or very advanced, depending on the appetite of the user to customize it. Todoist also functions as my task inbox — if I don’t know where a task belongs, I’ll just add it to the inbox when I think of it so that I can close the loop.

Nebo is my iPad note-taking app. It’s a fairly basic app, but the handwriting recognition is excellent. I take handwritten notes during seminars, meetings, and calls, then convert my handwriting to typed text, then export those notes into Obsidian for filing and linking. 

Zapier is an excellent but expensive automation tool. I use it to sync Slacks or emails that I flag or star into Todoist. Sometimes I downgrade to the free version, which works just as well but limits the number of items you can sync per month. 

GMail is still, somehow, about as good as email can get. I find that a discipline of maintaining inbox zero is more effective than letting AI built into other email apps sort through things on my behalf. I have my inbox set up to put “important” emails at the top, which relies on GMail’s assessment of whether things are important (which you can loosely train over time by marking certain things as important). When an email comes in that needs action, I either respond to it right away or star it to come back to it  later (I use the same process with Slack). And I ruthlessly unsubscribe to listservs in my eternal quest to declutter. 

Reader is my go-to RSS feed. RSS is an old technology that allows you to use one app to combine multiple feeds into a single place. So for example, rather than reading news on a bunch of different websites, I point them all to my RSS reader. That’s what I pull up in the morning and a few points in the day, saving articles I want to read. As I read there, I highlight and make digital notes appended to those highlights. 

Readwise is the sister app to Reader, developed by the same company. It uses spaced recognition to feed me five highlights a day from things I’ve marked from over the years, which is an easy way to be reminded of snippets from things I read a long time ago. Readwise then syncs into Obsidian, so all of my highlights from all articles I read and notes I took while reading them are accessible via a quick search. And because of the apps mentioned below, it all syncs highlights and notes from books I read and transcribed snippets of podcasts I listen to. 

Kindle is where I read books, although I do sometimes still get nostalgic and buy hard copies of books I love. Importantly for my purposes, Kindle also syncs into Readwise, meaning highlights and notes from my Kindle books are fed into the Readwise spaced recognition system, and are also automatically synced into Obsidian. Game changer. 

Snipd is a newer app in my system. It uses AI to transcribe and summarize podcast episodes, and allows you to click a button to save a “snip,” which is super handy for dense or educational podcasts. And — you’ll probably see the theme here — Snipd excerpts sync with Readwise and Obsidian, so all those snips end up in my one repository. 

The Boox Palma is the latest device added to my lineup. I think I’m in love.