Original link: http://www.cnfeat.com/2022/11/01/daycards/
1
My first productivity tool is not the latest electronic device, nor the newly designed application software, but a simple and ordinary paper card.
The following two facts make me realize that I will not become a person who is proficient in complex tools, and I am not as patient with tools as I imagined.
1. When I was working in a state-owned enterprise in 2012, I once bought a nearly 800-page “Excellence in Practical Skills of Excel”, the one with the CD-ROM attached. I intend to make “Excellence in Excel” worthy of the name on my resume, and at the same time to pass the boredom in a state-owned enterprise. time. The fact is, I read the first ten pages with great interest at first, moved several places after I left, and finally packaged and sold it to Duocaiyu.
2. After I bought a Mac in 2015, I knew about productivity tools for the first time. After being fascinated by my colleagues, I started to purchase downloads according to the list of various productivity tools. kind of software. After a lot of tossing, I seem to understand a lot, but there are always few things that can be used.
At that time, I had neither a correct understanding of production nor a correct understanding of tools. I thought that with a dragon-slaying knife in my left hand and a Heavenly Sword in my right, my heart would flow and my thoughts would flow like springs.
2
Until one Sunday morning, I started using paper cards.
At that time, I just finished reading a book and wanted to write a reading note, but sitting in front of the computer could not be idle. Before turning two pages of the book, I wanted to go to the Internet to check the information. Once I checked the information, it took half a day. .
My heart sank, and I gave myself a death order. I must write a reading note today. So, I closed the computer and put it aside, leaving only a table, a book, a stroke, and a stack of cards.
This kind of perseverance was still effective. I re-read the book and wrote down a stack of cards. Then I turned on the computer and struck while the iron was hot, and I actually finished a reading note. It turns out that to write an article, you don’t need to be skilled in using various shortcut keys at all, and you don’t need various color annotations.
Since then, I have found that the complex interfaces operating on electronic devices can’t keep me focused. Only the existence of real, visible cards that I can touch in my hand can keep my mind focused.
Since then, cards have been continuously turned into task lists, thinking records, and reading notes in my life and work, constantly solving my long-standing problems.
I began to reflect on how a piece of paper with a simple structure, neat blank, and the size of a palm could have such great power?
3
Knowing nothing to do, I try to think of a simple method and tool to organize my thoughts and life. This kind of simplicity really has to be extremely simple, so simple that there is no burden, and so simple that everyone can operate it.
I began to look at various productivity tools with this kind of demand and question, read a lot of articles, materials and books on various efficiency and notes, witnessed the upgrades, changes and complexity of various productivity tools , and saw an endless stream of creators testing No, Lord Ye loves dragons.
At the same time, I began to explore and create a minimal practical creative space, and I summarized the relevant thinking: “The Basics of Infinite Creative Space” and “Real Creative Space” .
It wasn’t until I sorted out a “Basic Productivity Tool” that I realized that I didn’t want a complex system composed of complex tools, but one that could take less time to learn and use and more time to create. Tools and Workflows.
Since my creative problem can be solved with a paper card, why is it so complicated? Why don’t you start over from the card?
So, I set out to design a productivity system that worked for me, built only with paper cards.
4
In my mind, a good productivity system should look like this:
It should be simple, you don’t need a complex system to do great work, it should be simple enough to solve some of your production challenges right out of the box, and everyone can easily design their own system.
It should be repeatable and sustainable, without excessive cost, and it has been proven by history that everyone can use it healthily and stably for a long time.
It should be compatible and open. Although it may not always be neat and orderly, all processes are always within one system, and all contradictions about productivity can be resolved here.
The establishment of this card productivity system was not smooth at the beginning, because I still didn’t know how to grasp the tacit understanding between cards and excerpts, notes, thinking, tasks, and reflections, and I was at a loss when faced with the cards that accumulated day by day scattered on the desktop, schoolbag, and shoebox. .
But I do love building something so simple, especially when I can’t find an existing solution anywhere else, so even though I don’t have much experience with card creation yet, I feel like cards are for me.
If you don’t know, just figure it out. If you don’t have a method, use a stupid method. I use cards to list the tools that amaze, admire, and fascinate me, and then find their official websites one by one, especially their official blogs. Click on it and read it again, browse all the user’s excavation of tool functions, and understand the scene needs and creation stories of creators when creating tools, especially the vivid and heroic personal culture at the beginning of tool creation.
5
I write down the concepts and patterns mentioned by these productivity experts on a card, and test and simulate whether I can solve these problems and needs with simpler cards.
This helped me to conclude a personal productivity system centered on “one card per day”. Its operating rules are extremely simple, with the following 5 cores:
- All tasks are expanded with card dimensionality reduction
- Tasks of the day enables a new card to configure task priority
- Always have a new idea to enable a new card
- Organize cards, migrate tasks, or refine thoughts at regular times each day (before get off work)
- Before going to bed, write down the 3 most important tasks for tomorrow
After that, when I look at other productivity systems, I often have only one impression: um, complicated, complicated.
More practical skills of “one card per day”, most of which have been organized in: “one card per day training camp” , welcome to join the practice
PS
This article, I have not written a word on the card, but it is still written on the card in my heart. It began to surface in my mind when I was woken up by my baby at 4 am. Later, I tossed and turned and couldn’t fall asleep again. I got up and wrote down all the thoughts in my mind, and then collected data to fill it up. Now I am motivated and forced to publish it first.
PSS
Originally, I wanted to write a few cards and summarize the core into the last few knowledge lists and send them directly. However, articles with more systematic and stories are more convenient for me to make manuals in the future.
For more card tools and creation techniques, please refer to “One Card Training Camp for Daily Lessons” .
This article is reprinted from: http://www.cnfeat.com/2022/11/01/daycards/
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