the writeup below was written as a submission for the 32-bit cafe’s fifth community code jam. i want to express my sincere gratitude to this community for providing me such a good opportunity to sidetrack and give full attention to something that, while not particularly related to my vision of this site at large, is still what i consider worthy of telling others about.
to not delve into an overly long story, i’ve been a productivity trainwreck ever since my final years of school. i don’t think i ever tackled my own projects prior to that on my own volition [unless those were playing videogames and occasionally writing on video games], but it became quite a pronounced problem for me when I entered my final years of school and had to prepare for university. i ended up getting tutored so i could stand a good chance in my university admission, and, to be frank, i haven’t had that great of a time in university either.
many of my problems that date as far back as 7-8 years ago at the time of writing can be attributed to my depression and anxiety, for which I was diagnosed and had to get on the meds for [i am no longer on the meds, as my anxiety spikes are gone and i found ways to manage my depression well enough for it to not be a bother]. much of my productivity for a decent chunk of my uni was all about laying in bed all the time, trying to escape the responsibilities of a university, and buckling under pressure trying to solve everything right before the exams. Things were quite tough to manage, and on top of that i was pondering about the ambitions of my own that i wasn’t able to meaningfully resolve due to the weight i had on my shoulders. [some of this might also be attributed to the issues I have that might be attributable to ADHD, but in a typical ADHD fashion i have not sought professional assessment for my condition, so i can only relate my experiences through anecdotes and conversations with others who are actually diagnosed with ADHD]
i feel like it is necessary for me to establish this background to state that I am by no means a productivity guru, and i don’t think i necessarily have it in me to become one. yes, much of my experience is informed by what I’ve heard from those kinds of people, including YouTube personalities like Thomas Frank and Matt D’Avella, but I will not pretend that I have managed to establish a universal turbosystem that made me reach brutal efficiency of an average Minecraft mob farm.
my path to today was built through many failures and fruitless attempts to trick my brain into doing exactly what I want with it, and even now I am definitely far from being the best at what I can do. i still have issues hitting all the goals i set for myself, and, likewise, spending time rationally and efficiently is still not my strongest suit. nonetheless, having any system at all is a difference between being able to do something and not being able to do anything, so maintaining it is of high value to me.
and, to be frank, i ended up using this project as a springboard to make some massive tweaks to a productivity system that i did not scope for when making this submission. much of what is written here atm is a crystalized version of what i used before the jam, and, besides tweaking, i also ended up uncovering a bunch of flaws in my methods merely through describing what i was even doing with my setup.
what i want to convey here is that the path to improving productivity is a path of continuous iteration. you should expect your first productivity system to fail. and all your subsequent productivity systems to fail too. be ready for the folder structures of your note app to spiral out of control. prepare for your overly elaborate and incredibly well-thought out PKM setup to fail you because of it requiring more willpower that you’re realistically able to maintain at all times.
i burned through multiple productivity setups myself, and what i learned from it is that every iteration is a learning experience to take things from and see what works and what doesn’t. just take it easy, do not overcomplicate, and keep on marching forward. you have what it takes to make something that will serve you best and actually get you to do things.