A friend came over the other day and we were chatting about nothing in particular. Now, I haven’t told anyone except my partner about my self-organisation drive, so this was purely coincidental, but the friend asked if I have used Google Keep before. 

No is the answer. I haven’t even heard of it. 

The friend then gets super excited, showing me how she has her separate to do lists for home, work, how they are different colours, how you can share notes and lists with friends. 

Perfect, an organisational tool to try out! Let’s go.

Google Keep try out

I downloaded the app on my phone, and found out that there is a Chrome extension for the laptop (although it did take 5 minutes to get through the obstacle of it formerly being a Chrome app – not very good signposting). Love that syncing.

To caveat (as with everything), I haven’t fully explored the app and it’s still a work in progress. Initially I had the intention to set up a new note box for each of the sub-streams. However, on reflection I already have the central to-do list spreadsheet. I don’t need to duplicate work and I think that could get pretty messy. 

The recurring tasks angle I was hoping to use it for, I do need to explore that still, as I can see that there is some reminder functionality. 

In the meantime though, I felt like I wanted to take advantage of the app’s dynamism. It just feels quite intuitive. The system I’m trying out currently is: 

1. A list called ‘Today’, with Today’s tasks on. I’m trying to bullshit myself as little as possible by not putting 30 tasks down that I will clearly not complete. I also don’t intent to include hugely obvious items, like ‘Work’ on a work day.
2. A list called ‘Tomorrow’. If something pops into my mind today and I know I want/need to do it tomorrow, including recurring tasks, then that’s where it is going. 
3. When Tomorrow becomes Today, I relabel Tomorrow as Today and delete the old Today. I then create a new ‘Tomorrow’ list.
4. If a task comes to mind which is neither going to get done Today or Tomorrow, but I want to do it, it is going to end up on the central sheet.
5. In the initial excitement I set up a list for a December holiday that I shared with my partner so we could sort out booking accommodation for each night. That list is a success. I’m thinking of maybe building out a specific list for each ‘live project’ in my life e.g. learning to drive, December holiday.

Final thoughts

It’s going to take time to work out how to build a system that works, but I like the functionality so far of Google Keep, and I like the immediacy of having a Today list and a Tomorrow list. Let’s see if it’s a system that works for me.

Also, I think I need to keep in mind the tension that while it is good to track, the end here is not to track everything, but to have an enhanced life. An enhanced life is independent of the need to track everything i.e. I don’t need to worry/feel anxiety if I haven’t written down every last thing I do. It’s about balance.