How do I revisit my notes without clutter? Also, give me suggestions to simplify my tools...
(I originally tried posting this to r/ productivity, but got turned away for low Karma score, but I really want some advice on this)
TL;DR:
I currently feel a lack of proper systems to look back at weekly reviews or revisit notes properly and would love to have suggestions or insights from people whose systems to do so have worked. That goes for physical and digital or a combination that's worked for Journaling or reviewing. I use an Agenda for the Day to Day, GCal for scheduling, Obsidian for clarifying ideas and physical notetaking as well as a notebook for weekly reviews. I've also felt the need of a more malleable way than paper to break down personal projects into more manageable chunks and big to do lists, but would love to avoid too much clutter, so I'd appreciate suggestions for simple tools that have worked for you guys.
As the title says, I've recently gone through trying to redefine how I approach my work due to the lack of structure I've had post-university graduation from Art School. I know that I work much better when there's a structure, be it in the form of time blocking, simply writing down tasks, etc., mostly stuff I learnt from Ali Abdaal's content. Naturally, I've fallen into the trap of looking for the "right" tool. I've used Bullet Journalling, but ironically for an artist, didn't like that it was just turning into how pretty I could make it lookto eventually devolve into an agenda (hence why I use a Hobonichi agenda now). At that same time I combined the physical bujo with a digital Notion task manager, but eventually realized I was managing the system more than I was actually doing stuff, so I stopped using it for myself (instead applying it to team work settings only). I did keep on using it for my Weekly Reviews, but after missing one too many I realized that I really rarely looked back at it and that digital just felt like it got lost in my notes, therefore I switched to doing them physically (just still not super consistent on it). I tried using Tick Tick, Todoist, etc. and while they're wonderful apps, I hated that the good stuff was behind a paywall for the most part, so I forewent digital stuff for a while (except for GCal).
That brings me to my first set of questions:
What do you evaluate in a Weekly Review without overspending time? What system have you found works to look back at them consistently? Bonus question: What do you do with your journals if you use one?
Now onto the second part of the question.
After graduation, I've mostly used pen and paper and found myself being more productive due to the simplicity it provided. However, I started to notice that my vision narrowed and that my long term planning was almost nonexistent since just jotting down stuff kept me in the short term. Of course, I made a big task list in the free pages my agenda has, but eventually I stopped looking back at it, and if I needed to reorganize it or change stuff, I'd need to rewrite it (reading that back I feel like that's the point) which is why I've started to use certain digital tools to help such as an Open Source task manager called Mindwtr (stopped using it for clunky UI) and Structured Web (most helpful so far) to allow me to have a digital backlog of sorts. In addition to that, I use Obsidian for digital note taking or developing project ideas (world building, narrowing down character design briefs from my physical notes) and have loved its simplicity for what I need it to do. That said, even then my notes are a bit of a jumble. I capture stuff physically, but don't have much of a system for them other than to refer to the physical ones when I need to (for my Japanese Classes, Art Mentorship recordings, etc.), so I'd also love some simple suggestions to approach that too.
With all that said, you might have spotted that even as it stands, it's a bit cluttered, what with physical notes, Obsidian, Structured, an Agenda, sometimes Mindwtr.
Could you guys give me suggestions for simpler solutions that I may have missed?
I feel like if I don't consult with someone I might go into a loop of thinking or look too much for the perfect app. All I need is a malleable big to-do list to manage bigger projects or separate into smaller chunks, scheduling and daily tasks. The agenda and physical notetaking has felt best so far. The overarching problem has been consistency, so I'd love to hear what has worked to built consistency to your day to day too.
