Creating a productivity system is essential if you want to complete important tasks efficiently and on time. A productivity system will also help take things off your mind and prevent you from forgetting important dates/tasks because we all have a limited amount of brain space.

“Productivity is the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.” - Dan S Kennedy

My productivity system is divided into three layers, and I'll teach you how to create your own productivity system using these three layers. Think of this system as a plant with three layers: Roots, Stem, and Leaves.

Layer 1: Roots

This layer of your productivity system is focused on keeping your personal life organised.

1) Calendar

The calendar is a vital productivity app that, surprisingly, few people use in their personal lives. Say you have a lunch meeting with a friend or a company meeting, how often do you actually mark it on your calendar? Most people will try to remember that date/appointment in their heads. Unfortunately, our brains are terrible at remembering minor details like this.

I've seen people completely forget about company meetings and lunch appointments simply because they never entered the dates of those appointments into their calendars. To prevent your brain from storing too much information, start using a calendar for your scheduled appointments. I use Apple Calendar, but Google Calendars and Fantastical are excellent alternatives.

2) Email

Email management is something that can save us a lot of time and energy. I learned some email management tips and tricks from productivity YouTuber Ali Abdaal, who uses Tiago Forte's "One Touch to Inbox Zero."The idea is that your email should only be touched once before being divided into four parts: Calendar, Task Manager, Notes, and Read Later.

You can manage your email by unsubscribing to spam/random emails. You don't want unnecessary emails to clutter your inbox. With a neater inbox, it's easier for you to focus primarily on important emails which saves time and increases productivity.

3) To-do List

Without a to-do list, your brain will most likely forget the tasks that you want to complete, so start making your own to-do list. Todoist is my preferred app, and I've been using it for years.

My to-do lists are split into three groups: Important, Less Important, and Personal Checklists. I'll prioritize urgent tasks with short deadlines and important work tasks on my "Important" to-do list. Work tasks that are not as important or time-sensitive will be added to the "Less Important" to-do list.

I spend 10 minutes each day reviewing my "Less Important" to-do list and moving items to the "Important" to-do list as needed. Holiday planning, future food adventures, shopping ideas, and anything else that isn't work-related are added to my "Personal" to-do list.

I highly recommend reviewing your to-do lists every day for about 15 minutes to see if there are any changes or tasks to add.

4) File Management

File management is simply organising your documents into different folders. Tidying up your documents will help with the ease of finding essential documents which help you to save time.

The cloud and hard disks are great ways to store your documents. Uploading documents to the cloud is advantageous because you don't have to worry about losing important information if your hard disks fail.

While I upload all of my documents to the cloud, I still carry a hard disk with me in case I travel to places where there is no internet access. This also allows me to work on the go.

Layer 2: Stem

The Stems layer includes additional modules that you can add to your basic productivity system. This layer is designed for users who want to take notes and capture information from books, news, videos, or podcasts.

1) E-books and Audiobooks

The e-book and audiobook apps that I recommend and use are Kindle, Apple Books and Storytel. I primarily use the Kindle app because it stores the majority of my books and has the most features for an e-book app. I also love that I can review my book notes and highlights with ease on the kindle app.

If you own an Apple device, Apple Books is fantastic because your book notes and history are saved on iCloud, allowing you to access everything from your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Storytel is an audiobook subscription service that I highly recommend! The audiobook selection is excellent, and you save money over buying physical books. On Storytel, I listen to audiobooks from Harvard Business Review and other great business books by well-known authors.

2) Read later apps

Once again, I must thank Ali Abdaal for recommending Instapaper in one of his videos. It was a true game-changer for me! Instapaper is an app that allows you to save articles you want to read but don't have the time to read at the moment.

Simply share the article with Instapaper, and it will be saved there automatically. You can even create different folders on the app so that you can save your articles in different categories which makes it a lot neater.

3) Readwise

Readwise is a fantastic app that functions as a hub for all of your highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, and other apps. With Readwise, you can export those highlights to Notion which is my daily productivity driver. If you take notes and highlight frequently, you should incorporate Readwise into your productivity system.

Layer 3: Leaves

This layer is inspired by Tiago Forte who teaches about building a second brain. This layer will utilise the other two layers of your productivity system to form a second brain. Your second brain will act as a thought partner for you which allows your creative juices to flow.

I will talk more about building a second brain in my next article so stay tuned for that!

A visual diagram of my Plant Productivity System: