The Goldilocks of Productivity Systems: A 5-Step Daily Process for Overplanners

Intricate planning is a distraction. No planning is chaos. Here’s what I’m doing instead:

Overthinking and overplanning is a drag on your mindset and your ability to get stuff done — especially when it comes to Tools for Thought and Personal Knowledge Management thinking.

Too often, I spend too much time making lists for my Future Self and not enough time checking off some actions I know will help me — because these same actions have helped others.

Simplifying my productivity system has 5 daily elements:

1. I review an affirmation and a roadmap of the person I want to become during the next 6 weeks.
2. Based on my schedule, I list one small thing I can do to step forward in that journey — even if it’s only a 30-minute task.
3. Throughout the day, I keep a detailed digital interstitial log.
4. At the end of each day, AI helps me extract 3 important elements from my log:

• Activities: What did I do today?
• Follow-up items: with links, notes, and details about how to complete these items.
• Questions: What did I run into today that needs to be solved before I can move forward?

1. A daily-ish self-accountability process based on the morning’s intended step toward my Future Self.

Interstitial logging helps me in two areas:

1. Maintain some semblance of objectivity about what I actually accomplished and how I did — or did not — get there.
2. Capture my emotions and mindset so that my End-of-Week Self has access to patterns.
3. Provide clarity to — and reduce friction for — the Future Self who must do or choose not to do the follow-up items I’ve captured.