The Vergecast - What’s in a productivity system?

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

You can learn a lot about somebody just by learning about how they get things done. Are they the sort of person who might have a perfectly color-coded email inbox, a flawlessly organized to-do list, and what’s that, they just sent you a calendar invite for happy hour next week? Or are they more likely to have a giant pile of sticky notes they never look at, a computer desktop with so many files you can’t even see the wallpaper, and today’s main tasks written on their arm? Neither is wrong, but they’re very different. On this episode of The Vergecast, the second in our three-part miniseries about work and productivity and how to get more done in a digital world, we decide to get to know our colleagues in a new way: by asking them to share their own productivity systems. We didn’t give them much specific instruction or homework, other than to come ready to answer a question: how do you get stuff done? Eight Verge staffers showed up, with eight very different ideas about what being productive means and how best to pull it off. Along the way, we found some ideas to steal, a few new apps and tools to try, and a lot of new thoughts about our co-workers. If you want to know more about the things we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started: A Googler’s guide to getting things done TickTick Upnote Notion Google Keep Google Calendar The Rhodia #16 spiral notepad Papier’s productivity planners Email us at [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of never-ending to-do lists. I'm a friend David Pierce, and this is the second episode in our three-part mini-series all about productivity, defined as loosely as possible. If you missed last week's episode, I talked to Laura May Martin, who is like Google's internal productivity guru. We talked all about tools and hustle bros and process and what it means to be productive without totally losing your mind. This week I want to do something completely different. I have this theory that you can tell a lot about a person just by understanding how they manage their life. Are they super duper organized with a beautiful, perfect, foolproof system

for making sure everything gets done? Do they just totally fly by the seat of their pants, trust their memory, and hope for the best? Do they like digital tools or pen and paper? AI, no AI. It's all very revealing, honestly, and it's really fun to talk to people about. So today, we're going to use this episode as an excuse to get to know a few of my coworkers.

We reached out to a bunch of folks on the Verges staff and asked them to come on the show and tell us about their productivity systems. However, they want to define that phrase was fine by me. My goal is to learn a bunch of new ideas, steal a few for myself, and also maybe psychoanalyze my co-workers at the end of it. I'll share mine too, but I'm going to go last. So we're going to get into all of it. But before we do, I have to go find my notes on who exactly we're talking to. And spoiler alert for my system, that's not that easier right now.

This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back. What's up, y'all. I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years

covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us.

All right, we're back. Let's get into it. How the people at the verge get stuff done and whether there's anything we can learn or steal or ruthlessly make fun of in all of their ideas. First up, Jay Peters, a news editor on our team. Jay Peters, tell me your productivity system. I have two different productivity systems, one for work and one for at home. Which would you prefer to hear about? Well, first I have a question, which is why think of those as separate things. Does it help you to differentiate those so completely? Yeah, totally, because then, like, I can do things on the weekend without thinking about them as work stuff. And my personal productivity system links in pretty closely to how my wife does it as well.

So we can kind of share tasks and language and communications that way. So it's like personal stuff. And then my work stuff is purely work stuff. And, you know, I can add specific reminders for work things that don't muck up my personal reminders. Just kind of a way for me to keep it separate. Okay. So let's start with the personal one.

How does that work? So we are both fully in the Apple ecosystem. And so we rely a lot on Apple reminders and Apple Notes and Apple Calendar. For reminders, I have my own personal set of reminders and we do a set of shared reminders, which is super useful for like weekend. or, you know, remembering to reach out to X, Y, or Z person for their birthday, stuff like that. We have a calendar system that allows us to, like, if one of us has a call, we put it on our shared calendar so the other person knows, like, oh, maybe I'll not be in the office at that time,

or, oh, I need to remember to be there at this time for this thing. And we use Apple Notes to, we keep a, this is my favorite things that we do. We keep a running list of stuff throughout the day that we want to tell each other about. And then at like the dinner table or over lunch, we just go over our bullets of like, oh, I saw this funny thing on the internet or, oh, we need to talk to our family about the XYZ thing. It's been super clutch. That is the most adorable thing I've ever heard in my entire life, Jay. We've been doing it for years. It is so awesome.

It is like so, so, so useful. And I think even if we didn't have, like, let's say we stop using iPhones, which I don't anticipate what we'd be doing. doing anytime soon. We'd probably just build like a shared Google Doc or something like that. Because like... Why share it though? Doesn't it remove all of the surprise and fun of bringing your topics to each other when you can see the list? Well, we sometimes write like, you know, a single note or like a single word or like maybe just include the link, but the link is so giant and gross that you can't tell what it is right immediately. So she'll just put in like pants and you get to spend the whole

day being like, what is pants about? What is pants? Yeah, sometimes. My wife's very good at using acronyms for names. And so usually I know what they are, but sometimes it's a surprise when, like, I didn't get the right person. Okay. And all of this is like shared, just shared between the two of you, so you have this like whole collaborative system.

Yeah. I mean, for like notes, what's kind of useful about it is we delete things off the note and they just go away. Because it's just like a series of bullets that we're like deleting and adding to over and over and over. For reminders, we have a bunch of shared reminders that are scheduled on a weekly or monthly basis or whatever. Like every Sunday, we have a reminder to vacuum. Whether or not that happens is a choice that we make because we decide we do have time to vacuum this weekend or we skip it and we push it another weekend.

And then the calendar is just a shared calendar of reminders and dates and all the stuff you need a calendar for. Got it. Okay. So what about the work system? That's a surprisingly like tight, simple personal system. is work as as clean and perfect? I keep it pretty simple at work too. So my work reminder system is tick-tick. Like I just use an entirely separate reminders app. I love tick-tick primarily because you can type like get draft to David by 4 p.m. And it will know everything I need to do there in terms of like making a 4-pm reminder

or making it happen today. If I needed to get to a draft every week, I would add every week and it does it every week. and all that stuff is just super fast and super easy and allows me to jot things down like the moment I think of them, so I don't lose track of them. We use Google Calendar here at The Verge, and so I use that for scheduling things on my calendar.

And then I also kind of live and die by my email, and I try really hard to keep inbox zero. It's sometimes I'll end the day with like three. I don't know if you've seen Andrew Bosworth at Meta. He talks about inbox 10, which is actually kind of a useful system where there's not the pressure of like always getting to exactly zero

at the end of the day. But thinking of it as a to-do list, keeping maybe just a couple of things you need to do in there, but otherwise like replying to something right away or archiving it right away is pretty much what I always try and do. Okay, so again, this system makes a lot of sense to me. The only thing I'm tripped up on is it feels like you've given yourself so many things to check.

And like I spent all of my time obsessively looking for one to-do list that does everything because I'm like, dear God, I can barely remember to open this one app and look at it often enough. You've given yourself like six. Are you just good about opening and checking these things? Yeah, I mean, I think of them all as like,

they're my separate spaces where I do certain tasks in certain places. And sometimes every once in a mile gets a little mixed up, but it's a system I've used for a few years at this point. And so, like, maybe if it's messy, I'm just used to it at this point. All right, well, you have way too healthy a relationship with your productivity tools. I find this is very annoying and frustrating and making me feel better about myself. So go away.

Jay, thank you. That was great. This was great. Yep. Great to be here. I'm sorry I made you feel bad. All right. Next up on the Verge productivity docket, senior reviewer, Victoria Song.

V-Song, welcome back. Hello. Tell me about your productivity system. So it used to be digital. And then I remembered that my memory is going to. to shit. And it actually is a lot better if you write things down. So it is now more than half analog with one app. So I got so sick of all the to-do apps. Like even the good ones. Even I was trying SuperList. I was, you know, I continually miss WonderList. And then, you know,

I'd been using To-Dist for years. No. I'm forced to use Airtable here because we have to like collaborate and whatever. So I do use that, not as well as I should, but I do use it. But I have like four journals that I keep all my productivity. And the main one, and this one was actually recommended to me by our former colleague McKenna Kelly. It is the papier productivity journal. And it's great because it is a actual journal where I write things down. And like, the best part of the spread is that you can see a little undated schedule thing. Like, I didn't fill this day out. But an undated schedule thing of your hours, your three most important things that you need

to do in the day, and then a to do list and a little space for you to write notes. So it gives you like the kind of daily template and you just fill it out each day. That is kind of nice. Yeah. So it's really nice. And then I've used this as a giant excuse to buy pens. So many pens in multiple different colors. This is the Pentel mat hop.

It drives math. So you're one of those people who is deep into like bullet journal TikTok. Unfortunately. You're like studying calligraphy just to be able to write your calendar events more beautifully. Yes. I've actually been like a hobbyist calligrapher for like several years. I don't ever get better. This all tracks, V.

This all fully tracks. I unfortunately don't get better. But you can't see it. But I have this entire drawer of washi tapes. I just went to New York City Stationery Fest a couple of weeks ago to buy more washi tape and so many stickers of cats.

So this is like a whole thing. I have this whole bag full of like glue and different kinds of markers and all of these things. Do I need all of these things to write out what a bullet journal should be? No, absolutely not. But the physical act of writing things

actually is quite, it helps me remember what it is that I'm supposed to do, and it helps me be very intentional with my day. And then what I'll do is like once I figure out a game plan, it never goes according to plan ever. Not once has my plan for the day ever gone according to plan. The point is, is in writing it, and so that if we get 75% of the way there, we've done a very good job. But generally what I'll do is I'll put in like some of my like most important tasks that I know I absolutely do not want to do into my Pomodoro app, which is focus to do. And I've written about it for the site. It just forces you to do something for a very digestible amount of time. So like I, I stick to the usual 25 five minute breakdown with the Pomodoro timer. And I find if there's just like a draft,

I am absolutely like, I don't want to write this draft. Like, theoretically I want to write it, but the actual physical act of writing is giving me palpitations. I'll just hit go. And you can do anything if it's only for 25 minutes. Totally. Like, it's amazing. So I will use that. And what I like about this particular Pomodoro timer app is that it lets you do things as to-dos.

So you get the really nice little, like, ooh, I checked it off. This is so great. and if I've like really got a stacked day and I'm just like I mean we all feel the days where we go to work and you're like I don't want to do this today absolutely not capitalism has a chokehold on my existential dread today this is how I like basically force myself to get through it and it's nice because I look for those like five minute breaks and I'm like and then I'm going to clean like furiously for five minutes and then it's also amazing how much you can do in five minutes. Yeah it is. I only have five minutes. It's amazing. It is amazing. I can't tell you, I've gotten down to, like, emptying the dishwasher, down to, like, a four-minute, 55-second art. It's really great. So, yeah, like, that's, like, what I do now. I used to do so many other different things. I do use Notion Calendar because I like that it will block off on my personal calendar stuff on my work calendar and vice versa. That's honestly the main reason why I still use it, because once they changed over, from Cron to the Notion calendar thing, I got very mad at the icon

change because it now disrupts the harmony, my aesthetic harmony of my task bar, which is like small potatoes, but as we've established, I'm a very aesthetic bullet journaler would take more time to make my spread. I have heard, by the way, that you and I specifically have caused a ruckus inside of Notion

with our loud public hate of that icon. So we are going to continue to fight the good fight and we're going to win someday some way we will we will win it's an ugly icon it's an ugly icon it's an ugly icon it's an ugly icon i'm sorry it used to be just like all my productivity apps were red and i was so happy and now this just sticks out unfortunately it's like the best one for my use so like yeah i don't i have a choice i'm stuck with it for now that's fair i have two quick questions about the journal yes one is it just the act of physically writing it that you feel like helps you remember it enough that

you don't have to like check it every 10 minutes or is it still like you have it open next to you all day and you're like constantly looking at it. I will periodically open it just to like be like what's the game plan again? What are my to do's again? Okay, cool. But actually like physically writing things down, it does help me remember things better. And like I think their study is showing that when you physically write stuff, you do retain the information a lot better than you would with the digital clutter. That's the main reason why I do it. It keeps me on track of things.

So bullet journaling, they have like this whole iconography of like symbols. I hate it. Can't retain that stuff for the life of me. The only thing I do retain is like they use like a little sharp arrow to kind of indicate you didn't get it done. You have to migrate it to the next day. So I do hate it, but it does kind of give me insight into the things that I really kind of put off that would really only take me 10 minutes to do. So I'll try. Yeah. Yeah. And there's something to the third day in a row you're writing the same task that you've been moving where you're

like, fine, I'll just do it. Like leave me alone. Journal. I'll just do the thing. I actually find it works a lot better that annoyance than actually just like resetting the due date digitally. Oh, totally. There's something about like the digitalness of it that really doesn't work from my brain, which is odd. Because I also wrote a story for The verge that was like, all I want is one productivity app that does everything. It's never going to happen. But that's all I wanted for the long time. And I actually do think that like being obsessive and writing out every single workout that I've done for August helps me. Like visually, like it's also insane because I've done like 38 workouts so far in August. But I don't know, something about

it and just like, oh, let me just write down every single book I read. And my four like, four-word review of them or just it just helps me be intentional it's like a five-minute break at the end of my day uh it lets me not look at the horribleness of air table and getting mad at how everyone else is using it wrong compared to me because i am the only one using it correctly it's not true but that's by not using it very much i think is that is that i used to use it so much and i got so frustrated with how everyone else at the verge uses it that i was just like this. Like, I can't, I can't handle it anymore. Does the journal go everywhere with you, by the way? Or does it, like, live on your desk and you

come back to it at the beginning and end of the day? It lives on my desk, and I come back to it at the end of the day. Like, I do notice that on days that I go to the office, I tend to, like, fall off for that one day. So if you look at my journal, Thursdays, which are the days I most often go into the office, completely blank most of the time. But that's okay. It's, like, not intended to be perfect. That's why I use undated journals. I used to use the the dated ones and then the pressure of filling every single day would just like make me not use it. So it's all undated. It's all loosey goosey where it's I stopped being too precious and pretty with all of my spreads

because then that was too much pressure to be like, oh my God, it's the 30th or the first of the month. I have to spend four hours calligraphying a spread with stickers and transfer papers and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, no, no. Like now we're, I'm a normal person now and I just mostly write stuff and I make things pretty for my brain. And that's about it. I love that for you. Yeah.

Also, pens. You're, I know, more pens. I just can't get over this convention you went to. But we'll talk about that another time. Thank you as always be. No problem. Next on my productive person list is Kara Verlaney, the Virgin's managing editor. Unprompted, three of the five people where like, I just don't, I don't, I don't know how I'm going to compare to Kara.

So what's funny is like there's a rumor that's been started about me. And I did not start this rumor that I am like this hyper organized person. And I am not, actually. I am very rudimentary in my productivity software that I use to keep myself organized. Yes. So let's just dive in. Tell me about your productivity system. I take a lot of notes is basically the long and the short of it.

I take notes all the time. My tip for myself that I learned long ago is that if I don't write it down, I don't know it. So if I'm in a meeting, I take notes. I went to the doctor last week. She was saying a bunch of stuff. I wasn't going to remember that. So I took notes. I usually default reach for just the notes app on my phone because I don't need a bunch of

AI summaries and prompts and ways to streamline and all of that stuff. Because I actually think all of that is distracting and makes you less productive. So I like the stuff that's pretty basic. So is your notes app like just an unbelievably long series of individual notes? Or do you have like a do you have a notes system? It's an unbelievably long series of individual notes. But they do all have titles so that I can find them very quickly because it often comes up where someone's like, oh, what did I say? And I'm like, I'm a Scorpio.

I need receipts. Like so I always am able to find what I'm searching for, which is very handy. But yeah, I don't, I don't interact with technology, perhaps as much as some folks think. I do a lot of handwritten post-its. Do you have a to-do list? I do have a to-day list. Okay. Tell me about it.

It moves. It shifts based on where I am. I sit in multiple places during the day so that I can be closest to the sun. And so if I'm... Cat, basically. Okay. I'm a plan. I just angle.

So if I'm at my desk, my HD list is like a big wall calendar that I keep. I obviously keep things on my phone. My phone and my work computer do not talk to each other because I think that that's important. So I often have two things. I have like work Kara and then I have life Kara. And they don't interact with each other. But my Google calendar interacts. But that's the only, that's the only system that's allowed to overlap.

Yeah. I try not to keep like if I was out of town the past two days. and I took slack off my phone. So I try to be very separate when I can be. Is that a life work balance thing or why keep them so far apart? I just think it's like it's kind of a scam. Productivity is kind of a scam because you feel like the more time that you spend plugged into the thing is like making you better,

but actually it's just wasting your time from doing the thing that needs to get done. And this is not to say that I don't procrastinate because I do. I wait until the last minute to do literally everything. But there's something about having to plug it into a thing so that I can cross it. Like that just doesn't make sense to me. So I'll often just... So the idea of like it feels good to check something off of your to-do list does nothing for you. It does.

Sometimes if I'm like starting at like the top of a day and I know that I'll get something done in five minutes, sometimes I get that little like buzz. But oftentimes I'm like, I'm just going to get the thing done. So I don't really like do a ton of task. tracking through my various moments of every day. It's kind of just like taking notes and just remembering what was said and what I need to get done from that. Got it. Okay. Do you spend a lot of time like going back and reviewing your notes afterwards? Yes. I pour over them constantly. Because that from my notes is what I know my next steps are. If I need to add something to my calendar,

if I need to follow up with someone, if I need to schedule a meeting, like everything comes out of my notes. So it's kind of like a brain dump and then I take from that. Okay. I think that is actually less chaotic than you're making it sound. Like, what's interesting, though, is I think the thing I hear from a lot of, like, you know, quote unquote productivity experts is like the first step is like write everything down, right? I think you're actually like way ahead of the game on that one. And then step two is like take all the stuff that's in there and make like a beautiful

task system out of it. And then step three is just get everything done. And you just skip step two, which I find fascinating. You just go through the notes and you're like, okay, here's the stuff I'm just going to go do the stuff instead of like plugging it all into some incredibly organized middleware to do list system correct because that's the stuff that i think is sucking your brain out of your body is just like making things color coded and beautiful because like who unless you're sharing it with someone that like really needs to know exactly what you're doing every minute of the day

but i operate very independently in my work life and my personal life and so i don't have like a ton of people that need to know every detail of how i'm spending my my my my moments. Okay. Are you, I know for sure that you're a like calendar person at work because you have to be. Are you a calendar person not at work? 100%. Yeah. Are you like sending friends calendar invites when you're hanging out on Saturday? So I only do that with people that know me really well. I don't like, if I make a new friend, I'm not like, we're going to get drinks on Saturday. Like I don't do that because that would be like next level. But if people know me really well, I also have a dear friend of mine who does that with me. Like, we're going to a wedding at the end of September, and she already sent me

the calendar invite for, like, what we need to be where, which I appreciate. I like it. There's something honestly, like, truly wonderful about that. Like, my immediate reaction is to be horrified by that, but the longer I think about it, I'm like, I love this. Yeah. Like, this is great. We are doing this together. Put it on my calendar. Let's go. Yeah, it's flattering. When someone takes the time to, like, think of you and they're like, hey, they would probably appreciate, like, knowing that I'm telling them where to be, but I'm bossing them around. That's flattering. I think there's like, there's like an element too of if I don't, again, if I don't write it down, I won't remember it. But if I write something down, it's in my head. So there will be some like vague recollection

that someone quoted me, you know, something to come fix my car. And it's like, actually, I know that you said it was $737 because I know I wrote that down. So like it's kind of like a weird photographic thing that happens to me. So even if I have like a workout class or like something like that I put it on my calendar because then I won't forget that that's what's happening that night. So, okay. That makes sense. So the remembering it because you wrote it down thing is really interesting because I've talked to a couple of people on our staff for this episode who have said the reason they switched to like analog notebooks is because the act of writing longhand helped them remember. Yeah. And it's true, right? Like there's tons of science that says if you handwrite,

you remember better than if you type. Have you? And I half expected you to be a person who like lifted up your giant trapper keeper of a notebook and you're like, look at this organizational system. Have you ever been that kind of person? 100%. Yes. I have, like I said, it just depends on where I'm seated, what kind of thing I use to keep track of things. So if I'm at my desk, which I'm not right now, I have like folders and post-its and calendars and a thing about, like, that's how I kind of organize myself. But when I'm not, I'm kind of left to more minimalist devices. So I think it just kind of depends on where. But for me, I think maybe this is what you.

you're asking, it doesn't matter if I'm typing it or if I'm writing it, like, same result, as long as it's going somewhere. I think this is also just like our age group thing was told, like, maybe in college that, like, writing things down is how you remember. Like, I just think, like, that's just people think that way. And maybe it's true. I don't know. It is for me. I think the thing that I found that works is I do it much more slowly. Like, I type really fast and I don't write by hand that fast. So there is something to the, like, you have to. I think that, I had a professor once who described it as like, you can transcribe when you're typing,

but because you can't write as fast as someone can talk, you have to kind of synthesize as you go, and it's actually making your brain work, and that's really useful. And I totally get that. I also just hate writing by hand. I just, I'm done writing by hand. It's 2024, handwriting is over.

Do you have good penmanship? No. So that's probably why. That's my real problem. My wife makes fun of me because I have, like, like literally there will be like a, you know, postcard written by a kindergarten gardener on someone's fridge and Anna will point at it and be like, that looks like your handwriting.

Yeah. She's right. It's terrible. That's nice. Yeah, I feel very proud of my feminism. So that's probably part of it. That helps. You know, when you're like in a group setting and someone's like, who has good handwriting?

I'm always like, give me. Ah, yeah. I run from those rooms. That is not under no circumstances should I be allowed to write on the whiteboard for everybody. But I do think there's something to that. There's like a slightly performative nature if you're doing something with someone else and you're handwriting it because you're like, they have to be able to understand what I'm saying here versus typing it. You're like, they'll get it. They don't have to worry about that element.

Totally. So, you know, part of it is just like, is this for me to remember that I need to like go pick up my dog from doggy daycare or is this for like somebody else to know what I'm doing, you know? It is amazing how far write everything down gets you. Like that that is one of the big takeaways I've gotten from talking to people about this, like kind of at all levels of it that Like, if you just write everything down, most other things kind of start to solve themselves. I'm going to be really interested to see if there's any communication increase after this podcast, because I'm curious to see how many people say they write everything down.

And then I'm going to be like, Bob, what's the deadline, you know? Yeah, a bunch of liars, it turns out. All right. Thank you, Kara. No problem. All right. We got to take a break. And then we're going to keep going.

I'm having so much fun with this. I'm already learning so much. we got more to do. We'll be right back. Hey, I'm Matt Bucchelle. Comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your 4U page. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, wait, don't swipe away. It's called, That Sounds Like a Lot, as in that feeling when you check your phone in the morning,

you read three headlines and you immediately think, oh, that sounds like a lot. I can't deal with all this. But guess what? I can deal with it. And I'm going to get into it every Friday. I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be like fucking annoying.

Maybe an actor. They go, humanism is gone. too far. You go, why? Because the Sadie Hawkins dance happened? Maybe a filmmaker. Since leaving that show, I'm challenged sparing. I just got to hang out and try to do stuff. You're the one with a charmed life.

Could be a politician. Basically anyone who responds to my cold DMs. We're recording the whole thing in a beautiful studio, so yes, you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen wherever you get your podcast. This is not the place to get the news, but it is the place to feel a little better about it. That sounds like a lot, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, we're

back, and I have many more productivity questions for all of my friends here at the Verge. Next up, we have Esther Cohen, the Verge's associate director of audience development. Esther Cohen, hello, welcome to the Vergecast. First time on the Vergecast, this is a huge day. Hello. Tell me about your productivity system. If you can call it that. I would say I am an old school gal who likes to check, you know, have a checklist and check off boxes. So anything that involves a checklist is my friend. What that looks like at work is usually Google Docs. I love a good doc. I sometimes get fancy with it and organize it and put dates on things, but it's generally just like, here's all the things I have to do,

and we're going to check it. So are you like a, you have one doc called like my to-do list that everything lives in, or are you like every time you get a new thing to do, you make a new beautiful Google Doc and start from there? It's both, right? So I have my to-do list in life and at work that I just run, like, run through and add things and take things away from. And then I project base have lists that, you know, a lot of the memos that I write or project trackers that I put together are just glorified Google Docs with checklist that I just, you know, assign different people to different things. But it's just it gets checked as it gets done. So that's like my number one way in which I organize my life and my work and get everything done. Why Google Docs?

So I love Google Docs, but I woathe using Google Docs on my phone, which is, the reason I don't do what you're describing. So I'm curious why Google Docs? I love Google Docs because it's the closest thing to a piece of paper. And so that's why I use it. Again, old school here. I don't really use my phone for productivity. I guess that's a good thing to mention here. I feel like when I'm in getting things done mode, it's going to be me and my computer typing away and looking at things and having my 87 tabs open. My phone is more for fun and to hear from my kids and my husband. Besides for that, like, so I guess that that doesn't really answer your question about how it's bad on the phone, because I don't use it on my phone. Right. That's a totally fair

answer. Yeah, I'm the opposite where, like, for me, I am constantly, like, the only reason I ever remember to do anything is because I write stuff down on my phone all the time. And if I had to wait until I was back at my computer, I would forget everything. And so Google Docs becomes a total non-starter for me. Oh, well, I do that also, but here's what I do. I text myself, like, things that I want to remember. So that is my own chaotic personal system, is I will text myself, whether it's like a link to something that I want to buy, whether it's a reminder to do something, like anything, and then that gets transferred to my to-do list when I'm sitting in front of my computer. So if I'm sitting down to write a grocery list, let's say, I can't do that on my phone.

That has to be on my, and like I said, Google Docs is for my work life. For my personal life, I use the notes app on the Apple, Apple Notes. So lame. But it has a really, really good check feature. So, but again, if I'm trying to get things done, whether it's like to plan a menu or figure out school supplies for the kids or whatever, I'm sitting down and typing on my computer. I'm not doing that on my phone. Does it help like organize your life a little bit where like when I'm sitting on my computer, I can, I can do, you know, like capital P productive things. Yeah. And I close the computer and I don't have to do those things. Yeah. I think it's helpful because I just, I feel like when I'm on the computer, I'm full. It's more, I'm more focused.

Whereas my phone is like the opposite of focus for me. It's just like jumping from like social media apps to streaming apps to the news to notifications to so-and-so's calling me and texts and what's apps. So I just like being from my computer. Sometimes I mute text if I need to focus really more. And that's like my work time. That's my getting things done time. And I think also like again, this is, I'm showing my age. But like bigger screen, easier to just like picture the thing you need to picture.

look at the full thing you need to do. I'm much more comfortable browsing the internet on my laptop browser than I am on my phone. I feel like the phone is too small and too confined. And so if I need to look something up or anything like that, I'm much more comfortable on the computer than I am on my phone. So. Okay. What about calendar? You're a person who has a lot of meetings at work. So I assume your calendar is very important. But are you like a, are you a calendar person in general? Like, are you the one who's throwing like take out the track? in your calendar with a reminder every week kind of vibes? So if it's a spectrum, I'm definitely not all the way on that side,

but I'm also not on the like ignore the calendar side. I would say I am really into calendar. I rely on my Google calendar so much. But I'm not at the point where like I want to have a shared G-Cal with my husband. Like we're not like that's not like I'm not like and I know a lot of people do that and they love it. Like I don't need to do that. Like no thanks.

Are you the hold up there or is your? husband the hold up there? I think we were both very happy not to not to be not to be that efficient as a family together. You know, like that's too much pressure. So when you have a thing that you all have to do together, how do you how does it happen? I put it in my calendar. He puts it in his calendar. We remind each other. We just remember. Would you send him a calendar invite? No. No, no, no. Okay. That's too much too. Yeah, that's too much. I would not take it well if you did that to me. I feel like that's very aggressive. Thank you very much.

It's like date night sends you an invite to your work email. No, thanks. But I would say at work, especially, I do like to be really strict with my calendar. More because I think it's like it gives you permission to focus on that task when you're doing it. So like I try to even sometimes if my meetings get canceled, I won't take them off my calendar because I'll want to spend that 30 minutes or that hour working on the things I would have done in that meeting. anyways. So like, I'm really good at getting things on the calendar, not super uptight about, like, canceling things in advance or whatever. Like, it's more about just setting those times up as I'm

setting up my week and setting up my month or whatever it is. Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So anything else that when you think about the like how Esther lives her life system, does anything else belong in that system? Yes. I would say, let me think how to phrase this. I would say there's a step before making a to do list, I think, sometimes, which is, is like, what are the things I care about when I'm embarking on this project, right? So I do a lot of like, you could call it journaling, you call it brainstorming or just kind of like vibing, but I like to have a written down vibe session with myself of just like, what are the things that I need to, what are like the pillars of this project or what are

the things I need to solve for when I'm doing this project before I sit down and then break down the actual to-do list? It's really helpful because that kind of defines the buckets of work as you're going to start doing them. And it also serves as like your guide to like making sure you're always staying on track and hitting those original goals. The other thing, which is much, that was like the macro answer. This is the micro answer is I like to, especially when I'm doing, you know I work on a lot of group projects and I work with a lot of different departments a lot of the time. I assign stakeholders to everything.

Like even if it's like, you know, blink your eyes. Like I will literally put a sign of stakeholder because I think it's really important. to just always have the person who's accountable to do the thing written down in everything you do. Otherwise, that's when things don't get done. If people are like, oh, I thought you were doing it. No, I thought you were doing it. And sometimes that's funny, right? Like, I'll be in meetings with like VPs or executives and I'll be like, okay, so just pause everyone. Like, so who's going to do the thing you all said we should be doing? And it's awkward and funny. But I find that it helps me get things done when I know, like, who is in charge of doing everything. I love that. All right, Esther, this is, you came in saying,

I have no system. This is actually like a surprisingly thoughtful system. I'm kind of impressed. Is it? Is it though? We'll see. Listen, I would get you out of Google Docs, but otherwise I feel like you're doing fairly well. I think my church and state with phone and my computer is a good thing. So I can stay in Google Docs for now. I agree with that. Awesome. Esther, thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm starting to sense a theme here with a lot of these, but I'll come back to that. Let's keep going. Up next, senior producer, Victoria Barrios. Victoria, describe to me your productivity system. So for my own life, I have a like three block system basically.

So I have a wide like eagle eye view. I have like a weekly view. And then I have like thoughts and notes. And the way those are broken up is above me. If you're ever in a meeting with me, I might be looking up because I have a three month calendar breakdown full of sticky notes of like main events for my personal life or work life. and that's the best way for me to like see both work and personal.

Like a big paper calendar with sticky notes. So full of sticky notes, easy to reference. And then for like my everyday like weekly tasks, I have a Google sheet that is broken up by the different team functions. So because of my role, I am like integrating in a lot of different aspects of production, but also like editorial management and special projects. So I have it like literally broken down one day, Wednesday. Friday, and then sponsorships, operations, production. And then I spend about 20 minutes a day

before my day begins, filling out my tasks. And usually, you're just like, these are the buckets of my job. And then you kind of fill out each bucket each day. Exactly. And then I have this, like, loose notebook at me next to me at all times, taking notes during meetings, whether they're like actual direct tasks or thoughts that I have while someone else is speaking, depending what kind of meeting it is. I just had an operations meeting with Kara and Sarah, who are also two of the most organized people at the verge. And for that one, it's like I usually have tasks to do.

Like I go in with the list of things I want to discuss written into Snowbook, and then I have the tasks that I go away from. I take everything written in this and then I'll put it onto that weekly calendar and then I'll make sure that weekly calendar is working back from the big three-month calendars. I feel crazy. Like, I'm describing this too. I feel crazy. No, I think you've actually described like a surprisingly like catch-all system that kind of collects everything.

But what is tripping me up is the mix of digital and analog because you're like, you're taking all your notes physically, but then you like live inside of a spreadsheet. but then your most important stuff is on a physical like wall calendar. So particularly with the like sitting there at your computer during a meeting taking notes, why do that on paper instead of like in a Google Doc or whatever notes app you feel like using? I feel like that's more of like a social courtesy. So I don't want to look at another screen while I'm speaking to someone taking notes. I also don't want to like break my, because like visual.

usually unless I have a huge monitor, which I don't. So maybe this will change in the future. But if I want to be looking at the computer and looking at the person, I'd have to like split my windows to then be taking notes. It really comes down to like one like social courtesy and another being like the amount of space I have on my windows and how cluttered I want that to feel. So the Excel like weekly stuff. I'm not looking at that constantly. I'm not referencing that constantly unless I finish a task. So I have a task. You break around for like an hour, 20 minutes, whatever it is, X amount of time. Throughout the day, I don't need it.

And I don't want a window that I constantly need. I've tried like the Google for like Google Notes or Google Keep or Google. Yeah. I tried that. And I found that I kept having to go to like a certain tab to keep that open. It's not flush across all screens and all tabs and all programs. So the two paper things help me. keep that, like keeping it flush across it, no matter what I'm working into or what program

I'm looking into. And I reference them constantly, like, I'm constantly looking at these calendars because I'm constantly talking about when things should be published and who's doing what and where. I'm realizing now, I've never really thought about this, but just having like an at a glance thing that is just like, here are the one or two most important things on days is so helpful. Like, this happens to me all the time where it's just like, oh, somebody is like, can we do this two weeks from Thursday and being able to just look up and be like, oh, what's two weeks from Thursday and just have like the one or two main things to that day seems so useful. I think I'm going to end up stealing that idea for me.

Yeah, please do. It's probably my proudest, like, moment of realization. Yeah, it's really good. So why a spreadsheet, by the way, for all the weekly stuff? Is that because you're like working with other people and sharing that stuff or you're just like a spreadsheet person? I know from experience you are a bit of a spreadsheet person, but I'm curious why it works for you. I'm a thousand percent proud spreadsheet girl.

And I think it's super versatile. So I keep my spreadsheet super easy. And I think it's a matter of it's adaptable. So something like Airtable, which I love also, it's too, I think, sharing focused. And like you need to follow the rules that Airtable brings up. and it is very adaptable and versatile in its own ways. Whereas in an Excel sheet, or sorry, in a Google sheet or Excel sheet, like I could build that no matter what.

I haven't always had it broken down into the three buckets of my position. Like way back when in the day I used to just be, you know, five columns, six rows. And like, I'd call that, you know, a working day. But now I could like, I have a note section like throughout the week. If I need to like remind myself of like, oh, you know, this is this coming up. catch all again because I never want anything to slip through the cracks, even though it will maybe eventually. But it's just very versatile.

Okay. That makes sense. I have become like a reluctant spreadsheet person and I'm, I sort of hate that I've become a spreadsheet person, but I'm slowly becoming a spreadsheet person for that exact reason. And it's like the more I learn about how to make spreadsheets, the more fun it is to make spreadsheets. Like I just learned how to do the thing where you take a bunch of cells and just

turn it into one big white box that you can just write in, ah, ah, feel so good. Now I'm just like, take it. notes and spreadsheets. It's bad times. What about all the stuff out of work? Like, when you're not at work, are you as sort of ruthlessly organized in, like, personal tasks and personal life and all that stuff? Uh, no. I've admitted myself to being a digital hoarder. So, like, I have, I'm one of those people that has, like, way too many photos on my phone, too many unread messages. And I've tried. I think what it comes down to is, like, I also like the luxury.

of just letting life happen. And so just, you know, whatever email comes through, whatever notifications come through, I'll read them when I can. And it's kind of like a snapshot of just what I can get through in a day. Whereas if I keep trying to focus of organizing every moment, then I don't enjoy, like, what's actually happening. Because that also happens at work, right? That's why I also have these notes, like, why it's so important for me to be looking at

someone while taking notes is because I don't want to like take myself away from the creativity of it all. I know that sounds way more like prophetic or philosophical than I was just to say that's a pretty profound insight about digital life right there. That's really good. So no, I would say like the biggest buckets I have is like these big calendars for my personal like how I'm organizing. But how I organize when I'm like in a team setting is very different because how I understand how other people are taking information is going to be very different. So this is why you're a good producer because there's like, You're like left to my own devices.

Just let chaos ran. But I understand that other people are less chaotic. And so I'm going to have to. This is like you just described why you're good at your job. And that's very good. That's good, at least. All right. Awesome.

Victoria, thank you very much. This is super fun. Next on my list, we have Jake Castranakis, the Virges executive editor. I, for the longest time, just wrote down a manual to do list in text edit every day, I wanted it to be as ugly and simple as possible. Very quickly realized that doesn't work. You need a real system of to-dos that can alert you at certain times on certain days. So eventually, I found Tick-Tick, which has been a game changer for me, and I've relied on it for years now. So 99% of my organization is in Tick-Tick, professional, but also like personal, too.

So just everything you have to do, whenever, wherever, whatever, whatever, ends up in Tick-Tick in some way. I literally, I have reminders to talk to my friends in Tick-Tick. I, yeah. I mean, I do too. I'm laughing out of, like, it feels good to know that it's not just me, not at you. Don't worry. Yeah, yeah.

No, Kara has, like, mocked me for being like, oh, I see how is a to-do for you today to say hi. On a normal day of work, how many to-does would you say are in your Tick-Tick-Tick? Oh, God. Okay, so it's probably like. 10. Okay. That's not so bad.

But the reason is that I don't rely on a, on a calendar. And so I have all, my entire calendar duplicated into Tick-Tick. So T-Tick isn't just my to-dos. It's also my meetings. Wait, so you write a to-do with a time for every meeting that you have to go to? Yeah. Listen, Jake, I'm not judging. I'm just asking.

But I'm also, I'm on this one, to be honest, I'm slightly judging. Because Tick-Tick has like a whole calendar thing where you can sink your calendar to Tick-Tick. Okay, they do. I tried paying. for it, it's like their only paid premium feature. And I was like, you know what, I should pay these guys some money. And so I paid for it and it was total chaos. It was terrible.

And then as it turned out and like, maybe I edit this out, turns out if you stop paying them, they don't turn it off. So I'm not recommending anybody do that. But I may still have access to some of their calendar features. Yeah, but basically that is what I do. I, if somebody sends me a Google calendar invite, I accept it in Google, and then I go over to Tick-Tick, and I type it in.

Because I don't know how to get the alert from Google Calendar. I don't have a Google Calendar app that's real pretty and nice and simple. Yeah, I just want a nice little list. Okay. So you, like, your days are basically, you like wake up and just sort of follow your Tick-Tick list down through the day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It's like a mix of untimed, just like general to-dos at the top. And then I've got my list of like basically meetings after that. And then, you know, very pleasantly check them off. And you can set things to repeat the next day, the next week, next month. So do you check your calendar essentially never? No, I still check my calendar all the time. Okay. Just in case?

I guess the visual element of checking the calendar is still helpful. And I don't get that from the to-do list, which is weird because otherwise I don't find the calendar. I find it overwhelming. There is something. So I've, as you well know, as the person who edits most of my stories, I have been writing about calendar apps for forever. And one of the things I have found fascinating about calendar apps is that they're mostly terrible, but the like time grid might be perfect.

Like we might have just solved it when it comes to like quickly looking at a thing and getting a sense of what's going on and when. Lots of people have tried to do a new job and the time grid might just be perfect. And I have gone through the same thing where like a list of stuff I have to do doesn't communicate the same level of understanding that just quickly opening my calendar and looking at it does. Yeah, a list is perfect for me personally.

If I'm just planning up my own day, but as soon as somebody says, when are you free? Or as soon as I have to figure out when I mix in with somebody else's schedule, just got to go to the calendar up. Totally. Are you a person, like,

do you every morning or every night like sit down and make a plan or do you just like show up and see what TickTick has for you? Oh, gosh. I don't know. Yeah, I just like, if it's either in there or it's not. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. If it's not, then I'm forgetting somebody's birthday. Okay. That's, listen, I buy it. So do you have things like you see a link that you want to come back to? Where does that go? A link that I want to come back to.

Oh. It just stays as an open tab until it destroys your computer, doesn't it? Yeah, no. That's 100%. That's most people's answer. And it makes me so sad, but it is the answer. I just leave it as an open Chrome tab until my computer beach balls

and then many of them are gone and that's just what it is. That's the cycle of life. What's your stance on email these days? That's an existential question. Email is sort of like my B-tier to-do list. Email is like, I leave a lot of things

to be like, I got to get back to that. Now the problem is when I have to respond to somebody and then I'm like, it's been a month. feel bad about this. My inbox is a total, I do clear it out. I aim for inbox zero,

but like that requires archiving like 100 emails a day because I get so much nonsense. But it is like, I don't know, I guess email is mostly like a secondary to do list for me. So I check tick

and then I go over to my email and I'm like, oh, okay, what do I actually have to do? Okay, yeah, I feel like we are a weird example because like more than any company I've ever worked at Vox media just like does not use email. Like we, we are so slack run as a company that I think we have a

different relationship with our inboxes than most where like if I got an email from Nelai, I would literally assume it was spam. I'd be like, why on earth would Nelai email me? But that's not how it works most places. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then because we're like, we're people in a newsroom whose email addresses are mostly public, we get more email than most people and we get more crap email than most people. So I feel like I have reached a point where I've realized, like, my own email habits have nothing in common with most normal people's email habits. Yeah, I always see journalists complaining about email. And I'm like, right, I don't think most people get like 200 spam pitches every day. Like I, and if they are, like, I don't know, I have a lot of questions. But yeah,

I think that we are, are unique there. And like, probably email is fine if you are getting a more manageable amount of it. Yeah, yeah, that seems right. So, okay, one more Tick-T-T-T-T-C-C-Quest. Then I'll let you go. Tick-T-T-T-T-on-T-N-T-N-Urown. Do you spend more time with one or the other? Do you think about them differently?

It's 95% on my computer. Okay. But the fact that it is cross-platform, I'm pretty sure it's Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, web as well. Yeah, that was big for me. Because I use a Mac and I use an Android phone. Yeah, you're like a unicorn in the tech universe. I don't know what's wrong with it.

me, but most of the beautiful to-do apps are Apple ecosystem only, and would like to be able to change platforms whenever I like. And it's important to be able to get this is the other things that's really nice by TikTok. It'll send me reminders on my phone as well. So if I'm running late for a meeting,

I'll look down my phone and it'll tell me that I'm running late. So it's 90% on the Mac, but having the ability to quickly add things and quickly check things on the phone, key. Any feature requests? What would you change about your system if you could change something? I mean, look, it's a mostly free app that's like slightly buggy and broken, but does absolutely everything you could dream of.

I wouldn't change a thing. That sounds like every to-do list app. I love it. Mostly buggy, wouldn't change anything. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Jake, thank you. Got speed. All right.

We have to take one more break, and then I have two more people to talk to, and then I'll share my own system at the end. We'll be right back. Buzzwords like progressive and affordability are thrown around all the time in politics. But what do they actually mean? For me, being a progressive means at least two things. One, being willing to unite lots and lots of people, all of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your life worse.

And then second, being progressive is essentially a hopeful enterprise. That you think, I think that the world can be much better, that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo. And is there a difference between what it means to the elected officials and what it means to the people? So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that. That's like secondary.

Third, like that doesn't, that's not a priority. That's this week on America Actually. Let's dig it. All right. We're back. Time to continue verge productivity sharing feelings time. Up next, Antonio D. Benedetto, a commerce and deals writer on our team. So my productivity system is like really simple. I've tried different things like going back

years ago like wonder list and whatever and I, but it basically boils down to like to do lists, right? Is like how I keep myself on task. And I've just for a few years now just settled in on I have a notebook next to me on my desk and I write down what I need to get done for the day. and the way I make it a little treat is I use a cadre of fountain pens that I have in my disposal that I continue to buy even though I probably still don't justify using them enough aside from this one little thing with my to-do list. Like how many pens are we talking? Oh, shoot, I might be over a dozen.

Okay. That's not so terrible. I've got a drawer. I've got a drawer and it's like it might be over. It might be like getting close to two dozen now. I don't know. It's somewhere in that range. So you like sit down in the room.

the morning and just sort of write out the day you're going to have. Basically, yeah. And sometimes if I move to the couch from my desk where I'll just take my notebook with me, it kind of keeps me on task for the most part. And when I, you know, get it done, I have the joy of checking it off the list with a little pen. And sometimes I use a different pen with a different style nib and different color ink to check it off versus to, you know, to write it.

So each time's a little treat, you know, because I love this. Frankly, every time I've tried like some kind of digital solution, I feel like I spend more time working on that and setting up what it is than I do actually just putting it in and getting a task done. Like I tried, I tried like Notion. Like David, I, I know every time there's a chat about this stuff and work Slack, I snicker to myself and I don't weigh in because I'm all I think is like, notion is a scam. Like I just can't get behind it. I mean, you're right and you're wrong. I fully understand that.

What kind of notebook do you have? So I've alternated. Oh, yeah, and this is an important thing. Nobooks are pretty cheap, and I think it's fun to get, like, ones of different styles. Like, I've used, like, this, like, basic black one that my wife got me, I think, off Amazon, like, years ago. And it looks like a whole lot, like, moleskin or that kind of style. But, you know, you can pick ones that have, like, different, like, rulings, like, different, like, mind spacing. or dots instead of like a dot grid instead of lines.

Or I've used one that had, it was really a sketchbook. I think my wife wasn't happy with me that I kind of stole her sketchpad because it was kind of fancy. But I liked having for a period of time no lines at all. It was kind of like, oh, I can write big. I can write small. And some pens that have like a broad nib, for example, force you to write bigger and that can be kind of fun or adventurous.

But I've kind of settled on like a rodea notepad that's spiral bound and the spiral is on the top. which is kind of nice because you can like tear these sheets out, throw them away when you're done with them, or, you know, kind of make it, keep it nice and tidy if you really muck up a sheet. And then it's a good quality paper. But you don't have to like spend a lot on a notebook. I mean, only if really want to.

I do, I am a big believer in the top spiral bound ones. Because you can like, you don't run into the crease when you're trying to write on the left side. It lays flat. That is the way if it's just going to live under desk. Exactly. And if I'm a right knee, but if anyone's a lefty, that's also good.

Totally. Does your notebook go everywhere with you? Or does it, like, live on your desk and you go to it when you need it? It usually lives on my desk. I don't go to many places, sadly. I know that feeling. Yeah, I mean, I'm remote, but I have gone to our New York office, like, a bunch of handful of times. And, yeah, every time I've gone, I've brought my notebook with me, sometimes doesn't leave the bag. But, you know, hey, it's all well-intentioned, right?

Like, we're just trying here. Absolutely. I'm with you. So what about like calendary stuff when you're like, I have to do something next Thursday? Where does that go? Yeah, I mean, that's where like I always lean on, yeah, digital stuff. And that's really going to be like Google calendar, you know, for work. I've got my work and personal calendars, of course, separated personal calendars. My wife and I have a bunch of shared ones that are like, here's our events. Here's our like, you know, works related stuff or hustles or whatever that may be come up from time to time. So they're all color coded and like family functions, stuff like that. You know, so when it comes like scheduling and advanced or that, and then what I do for my personal like errands, I just use like a Google Keep to do list sometimes. Like if I'm just because I think I started using Google Keep like years ago

when I had a pixel is because it was there. And it's clean and simple enough to make a little checklist. It is the perfect. If you just want like a notes app you use every once in a while, Google Keep is perfect. Exactly. And it's like the perfect kind of thing. to not care about because it's just like pull it up, make some checkboxes.

It's like, this is the kind of thing. I'm like, it's a Saturday and I've got a bunch of chores to get done. And I want some kind of like, I just want to write this stuff down fast like without like, again, going to my desk and like writing stuff down by hand. Like that'd be nice, but I just don't need to on like a busy Saturday. So it's like, all right, it's all there. And then check it off, check it off. I'm done.

You know, like maybe I can put it depending on, I used to like change the color of it. And I think I stopped caring about that too. Okay. So that sounds very much like you think about it the same way you think about the physical notebook, just kind of a digital version of like it has pages you can tear off as you need to. Everything is kind of transitory that way. Yeah, basically. And I try not to get too attached to it. I mean, the amount of times, like, I go to write and like on my actual notebook and like a pen doesn't want to start because I, oh, I haven't used that one in a while. It's like, oh, screw it, just move on to the next one. Or like, I'm just like, so that each, each page sometimes is like filled with like scribbles of me getting a pen to start. And, you know, sometimes it's like, whatever. It's ugly. Who cares? It's fleeting. Like it's just just kind of be in the moment. Get your stuff done for the day and move on. Because like the greater tasks are going to be like probably in like your calendar appointments or for us with work, it's air table. You know, it's kind of like, you know, it's what you're getting assigned. And it's like, well, it's there for like me to, but I need to dive into like the micro.

tasks for just today. Like what do I start on right now? What do I need to do? How do I make this mechanical? So many times like we jump I jump into like a post and I think like I tell myself make a mechanical. If I don't know where to start writing, let me start filling in like the less exciting, not creatively demanding things that just make it, I'm just going through the motions to get those gears moving. And when those gears are moving, it's like, okay, now I can kind of take off and run. So I start walking basically with every little step. That's great. Make it mechanical is a pretty good, like, sticky note to put on your computer monitor every day. I like that a lot. Thanks. Anything you would add to your system, if you could, what do you feel like is missing? Or do you feel like it works?

I would add more pens. I will always buy more pens. Love it. A better handwriting. But now, I don't really know. but maybe like if for some other like personal projects that really are kind of more multi-layered like a photo project that I'm that I kind of am ideating on or whatever like I don't know maybe maybe I could see myself trying again with something that's like a little bit more involved again not notion sorry been there tried it nope but no I don't I don't know I just I guess I just I just try to keep things really simple fair enough I like it all right Antonio thank you for doing this appreciate it no problem thank David Next, and last, but certainly not least, reviews editor, Barbara Krasnoff.

Barbara, welcome to the show. Thank you. So tell me about your productivity system. Oh, it all depends on what I'm doing that week or what I'm using that week because I've used a whole lot of things. Right now, my main productivity app is Notion. I use it to track most of the things I do. I basically take a page.

I say it's my tasks for this day or this week. and there's a list of everything that needs follow-up. Sometimes I use a checkbox to-do lists. Sometimes I just type things out. Sometimes there are links to the Slack messages that inspired them. Sometimes I've got due dates. Sometimes I don't. If anyone else looked at it, they wouldn't see it as an organizational system.

They'd see it as a mass of stuff. But it works for me. I did try to be more organized with Notion. I tried building a Notion database because if you do, do that, then you can right-click on a Slack entry and share directly with Notion without having to do the cut and paste thing. And I tried that for about two weeks, and it did not work for me. A, it was much too formal. In fact, that's it. It was much too formal. I just couldn't deal with that. I had the exact same experience. It ends up being, it felt so fiddily to me to be inside of this

database thing that I ended up. I went back to the same thing you did of just like, I'm just going to write down a bunch of stuff and figure it out from there. Absolutely. Now, if there's something that I'm really afraid I'll miss, like a task that's due at a certain date, that I'll use Google tasks. And the reason I use that is because I'm always checking my calendar because I'm always missing meetings. So I'm always checking the calendar and that the tasks come right up on the calendar. I mostly don't give them dates, I mean times.

I just give them a date because then you have this big, colored, bar across the top of each date, and I can use that to give myself a sort of poke in the ass. So Notion is kind of the like scratch pad for your life, but then if it's like this thing has to get done or else the world falls apart, it goes into your calendar in some way. It goes into my calendar, yeah. And then of course there's Air Table because we've got to use Airtable. Do you like Airtable? We've heard some mixed things about Airtable from folks so far. You know, the funny thing is I, first I liked it because it was fun to play with. Then I didn't like it because it's one more thing to check.

But now that I'm starting to pay more attention to when something that I edit has to appear, and so I have to look at the calendars that Alex Krantz and some other people have created, now I'm finding it useful again. So I keep going back and forth. So on the whole, I like Airtable. I do have some problems with it. I think if I spent about another two weeks really, really learning it, I'd like it even better. I think that's probably right, which is the thing that drives me crazy by our table, which is

like so many of these tools, including Notion, actually, it is so incredibly powerful and I don't care about most of it. And as a result, it ends up being kind of fussy and slow in some ways. Every time I go back to Notion, I end up like running away towards some other simpler app, but then it can't do all the things that Notion does, so I go back to Notion. And I feel like AirTable is the same way where it's like if you leave, you can't do stuff, but if you come back, it's too much stuff. And this is like the productivity app nightmare that you and I have signed ourselves up for.

Yes, it really is. And the funny thing is with Notion, I'm actually starting to like it more. I left it for a little while because I felt it was a little bit too fussy. There was too much you could do with it. And it was getting Evernote syndrome, you know, where there was just too much stuff there. But then I started using it back And now I'm actually trying to use it To write a novel.

So it's... Is it working well for that? Yes, it is because I have trouble. I'm a short story writer mostly And I'm trying to write a novel And I need separate chapters. I was able to separate them in notion Where I wasn't able to really do it

In a couple of other things I tried. So we'll see what happens with that. That's cool. What about outside of work? Do you have the same kind of organizational system for your non-work life that you do for your work life? No. No.

A totally separate way of thinking about. I've totally said, well, except for the fact that I'm now using Notion, trying notion with writing. But for personal to-do's I use Tick-Tick. I've been using that for a long time. Unfortunately, I also tend to ignore it sometimes. So I'm starting to actually go back, use the same Google tasks format that I used with my work stuff because I have a different calendar for personal, but, you know, it sort of waves at me and

says, hi, you got to do this by this time, which tick tick really doesn't. And then I used to use Evernote, but it got too large and then it got too expensive, way too expensive. Agreed and agreed. But what I used it for, which was fairly simple stuff. So I recently left Evernote in favor of Upnote, which is one of the lesser known ones, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed because it's also very small, so who knows it'll be around in five years. But it pulled in my Evernote stuff without much trouble. And it looks a little bit like a simpler version of Evernote. I like it. It's just a day by day you can make to do notes, or you can write whole essays. And it's, it looks a little bit like Evernote.

I was going to say, it's like if Evernote were much better designed and didn't have 15 years of like cruft attached to it, I feel like that's what Upto looks like. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And they're responsive. I had a little trouble with my getting my Evernote stuff over, and I sent them a note and figured I'd hear from them in about two weeks. And I heard from them in a few hours. Nice.

It was great. That is really great. Any other apps you've tried recently that you really like? You're probably the person on staff who tests as many of these as I do. I just do it because I'm a lunatic. You do it because you like to help people on the internet. Anything else you've tried recently that you like? Not recently, no.

I mean, there are several. I should have brought up my article because I can never remember the names of these things. There are several that are sort of on the up note level that are okay and that I was trying. And so let's see. I use Keep occasionally. But that's only for the odd note here and there. Joplin was not bad. Mm, okay.

That's really interesting because it uses Markdown. And my problem with it was it depends on markdown a little bit too much. And if that doesn't bother you, it's really nice and simple. And, you know, there is a very decent free version available. That's a good one. I have not tried that one, but I have heard a few people who swear by Joplin as a tool. for collecting all your stuff. And a lot of people swear by Obsidian as well.

And that was what I almost went to Obsidian. It was between that and UpNote. And I ended up with UpNote. I also use a notebook. I mean, I actually write. What a concept. You know, in a real notebook. So there's that as well.

I always carry something like that around with me because, you know, sometimes you just have to grab something and write down a very quick note. I have not found it as easy to, you know, grab my phone and talk into it. Sometimes I do, but not all the time. This all makes a lot of sense to me. It just sounds like a lot of things. That's my only immediate reaction is like this strikes me as a lot of places just to check for stuff. And especially like, you know, the to-do lists.

As soon as you said, I also used Tick-Tick, I was like, do you remember to check Tick? And you said, you don't. But so do you ever feel like you? you want to consolidate everything into fewer places, or does the system you have work for you? I should probably consolidate a little bit. My biggest problem is with the to-do list, with the Tick-Tick versus Google tasks. And I sometimes think I need to go to Tick-Tick, look at all the stuff that's like months old that I haven't done. Sure. You know, and go through that and get rid of it. I'm so used to using it.

then sometimes I think I should be using Google tasks. I should be just using Tick, tick better. But those are the only two, because everything else, like Notion I use for almost everything else. Fairly. I like playing with the other stuff, but I usually tend to come back to that. And the only other thing I really use is writing in a notebook, and that's just something I carry around with me. And then if there's anything in there that I need permanently, then I move it over. Fair enough. Yeah, again, I keep trying to quit Notion and I keep coming back to Notion.

I know. And by the way, if you find anything that you think I should be trying or playing with or adding to my list of note-taking apps, please, please tell me, because I'm always playing with new ones. I will. I'll keep you posted for sure. All right, Barbara, thank you so much. Thank you. This was a lot of fun. Well, that was fascinating. There are some things in there. I'm definitely going to steal immediately. like Jay's shared doc of stuff to talk about with his partner and Victoria's Wall calendar, I also think the idea of just like writing all your stuff down no matter what as a to-do list is great.

Also, Kara is definitely right. Everyone should just take more notes on everything all the time. But before I make anything work better, in the spirit of sharing an openness, here's how my system currently works. I've tried everything. Like I actually feel fair saying that. I've tried every app that there is to try.

I've tried a lot of systems. And I've settled on this thing that you hear a lot called time blocking. And basically the idea is at the beginning of every day or the night before or whenever you want to do it, you sit down and you go through your calendar and you give every minute a job, right? So things like projects you have to get done. You don't just put them on a list. You put them on your calendar at a time. Because the theory is if you don't give things a time to get done, they won't get done.

And so I for a long time would have things like take a shower and eat breakfast as calendar events. And then that started to seem bananas. So now it's just an hour of like get ready in the morning on my calendar every day. But I put sit and watch movies on my calendar. Like downtime is a thing I schedule now because the idea is if you put everything in your calendar in a way that works and makes sense, you can trust that when you say downtime, you can do downtime. And that has actually been really meaningful for me. The app I use most is an app called note plan. It's mostly on Apple devices, but there's a web app now that works pretty well, too. And its thing is it's basically a combination of calendar, notes, and to-do list app. And I wouldn't

say it's amazing at any of those things, but it does all of them serviceably well. And I love that. So I can open the app and it shows me all my calendar events in the right sidebar for the day and all of my reminders. I mostly use Apple. reminders now because I use an iPhone and it's just easy to use Siri to dump stuff into reminders. And then it shows up in that sidebar in note plan. And so every morning I'll sit down. I'll look at my calendar events. I'll look at my to-do list. And I will basically write a bulleted list of everything in order that I plan to do that day. And then the goal, if all goes right, is just to plow through that every single day. Something about writing it all down and sort of seeing it in one place and also

knowing, like, what do I need to do next is a question I can answer just by opening an app is very handy. I would say I switch away from note plan like once every three weeks. I've tried Notion. I've tried Obsidian. I used Obsidian for a long time, actually. I think that app is very good. I go to Evernote periodically. I tried Rome. I really like workflowy because my brain just kind of thinks in bullets and outlines and that worked for me really well. I've tried all of the apps that there are for doing this kind of thing. And note plan, because it's that combo of calendar reminders and notes all in one place, has just worked for me.

I do live out of my calendar. I am very much the kind of person that if I don't put something on the calendar, it's not going to happen. I just don't trust my brain and I trust my calendar. So I don't even think, right? Like that lingering sense of like, oh, did I schedule that thing? What was I supposed to be doing today? I don't have that because I just assume it's all in my calendar.

I miss things occasionally because I forget to schedule them, but I trust my calendar a lot. I use an app called Fantastical, which I think is wonderful. And again, it has reminders integration so I can see my tasks in there too. I can schedule stuff. Google Calendar works fine. I think the Outlook Calendar is kind of hideous, but Google Calendar is solid. It all works fine. I don't have particular religion when it comes to calendar apps, but I like Fantastical a lot.

Like I said, I use Apple Reminders. I've switched between all the to-do lists. I think To-Do-List is great. I think Tick-Tick, which a bunch of my colleagues have mentioned, is also great. But for me, just being able to, like, fire up Siri, say, remind me to take out the trash at 9 p.m. tomorrow. But just being able to fire up Siri, say, remind me to take out the trash at 9 p.m. tomorrow and have it appear in the rest of my system is amazing. The other part of my system, I would say, is what I use for bigger projects.

like stories I'm working on or Vergecast episodes or bigger things, especially things with due dates and deadlines, I have used literally every app that exists to do this kind of thing. I've used Notion where I built a really beautiful database and Canban board

that has everything just right. I've used what basically you could just call like a big long list of stuff. There's a productivity blog that I read a long time ago that says one thing a lot of CEOs do is just have, a long-ass list. So I've tried the long-ass list. Right now I'm using an app called Capacities that I think is pretty clever. It has some neat organizational tools, but it might be too complicated. I might end up

back at Notion before I get frustrated with it and switch to something else. Again, the note plan thing is pretty settled for me, but this idea of like how do I manage all of the different sorts of things that I need to get done in one way, shape, or form that's bigger than just like a task I can write on one line. I have not solved. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it because I think when I get it right, somehow everything will become more pleasant and doable in my life. Probably not, but it's worth a try. All of this is to say, I think the big thing I've learned from this is that I switch too much and this anarchy is bad. All of my information is in lots of places. I don't necessarily know how to use each of these apps to their fullest extent, which is the thing I talked about a lot

with Laura Mae Martin, the idea of like really understanding the settings and being able to make the most of the I don't have any of that, and I got to work on that. And to that point, one thing that I'm learning, both from talking to Laura last week and talking to all my colleagues here, is that simplicity and consolidation actually go a really long way. Our digital lives by nature kind of tend to spiral, right? We're on so many platforms. We're in so many platforms. We're in so many different kinds of things all day, and we're interacting with these endless feeds full of stuff that it just feels like the entropy of it all

feels inevitable. So I think picking a place or a couple of places that are your places feels really important. And I think that actually might be more important than what those places are, just knowing that there are a couple of them. Whether it's telling people that email and text is better than Slack for you, or throwing your entire life no matter what it is into a to-do list, or just being like, I am a person who uses Google Docs for everything. I think less is more, even if the tools aren't perfect.

and actually require a little more busy work. You know that phrase a single source of truth? I think having that for your digital life might actually be more important and more useful than building these perfect, beautiful, interlocking systems that I've been trying to build myself for way too many years at this point. Anyway, lots to think about lots of good ideas.

I am probably going to go blow up my entire productivity system because that is what I tend to do when things like this happen. And we have one more episode actually coming up in this series, which I suspect will have some insight into this as well. We're going to talk about one of the OG all-time most popular productivity apps and kind of how the world changed around it. But for now, that's it for the Vergecast today. Thank you to everybody who came on the show and did this with me. And thank you, as always for listening. If you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or awesome productivity systems you want to ruin my life by introducing me to. You can always email

us, Vergecast at theverge.com. Keep calling the hotline. 866 Verge1. One, we love hearing from you. The feedback to this series so far has been really fun. I worry sometimes that I'm like the only person who thinks too much about productivity and how to manage your life digitally. So it's been really nice to hear from all the people who have enjoyed this as much as I have. Thank you to everybody who's reached out. This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Will Poor,

and this episode was edited by Zander Adams. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll be back on Tuesday and Friday with our regularly scheduled programming. everybody's back. We're going to have tons of fun stuff, and we actually have a couple of really great things coming up this week. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.