A couple of days ago I attended a phenomenal workshop on monthly planning hosted by Sebastian Marshall and Kai Zau, the guys behind Ultraworking. In the QA section of the workshop, we talked a bit about tools to help us track what’s going on in our lives so that we can later look at real data when we evaluate and not rely on gutt feelings. I shared a simple process that I currently use to track my sleep but that is so versatile that you can literally track anything with it that fits into a spreadsheet.
Since starting my PhD a just a couple of weeks ago, I already have a reputation amongst my office mates that I’m particularly structured and orderly about my stuff. If that judgement is correct or not I cannot say (I personally don’t find myself that orderly or structured). But I thought it might be interesting to write up the system that probably has had the biggest impact in my earning this reputation: the way I deal with the large number of articles and books that I (we all!