Matthew Lang

World Sketchnote Day is coming!

If you're new to sketchnotes then this is a great way to start the year. Immersing yourself in the sketchnotes of others and learning by example.

via The Cramped

Understanding other people is a tall order because everybody is different—but that’s what makes life worthwhile: our time on this planet would be mundane if we all had the same personalities, desires, values, and beliefs. And yet, even with our myriad distinctions, we all want the same things out of life: happiness, purpose, fulfilment.

— Understanding Others by The Minimalists

Today it seems too many people are quick to play the "I'm right, you're wrong" card. The Internet certainly doesn't make it any easier.

Last week I was toying with the idea of switching from Todoist to Wunderlist. The quick path out was to switch to Wunderlist and start afresh. After a couple of hours though, I realised that even though Wunderlist is a perfectly good task manager, I missed the simple, clean interface of Todoist. I missed the Karma feature that let me do weekly reviews and whole host of other nice features that I had become accustomed to.

The problem wasn't the task manager itself, it was because I allowed my task manager to become too complicated. In the last three months my Todoist account has become cesspool of overdue tasks, dead projects and a garbage pile of labels.

I quickly switched back to Todoist and cleared everything out of my Todoist account. I removed all tasks, labels and projects. Having a blank slate to start with meant that I could simplify my Todoist account and start again with just the essentials. The process of clearing out my task manager was exactly what I needed. I just didn't see it until I looked at the pristine list of first tasks in Wunderlist.

Starting afresh with your task manager might seem daunting at first if you've invested time and energy into getting the right workflow for yourself. I thought I had a good workflow but in fact it was just a mess of confusion and it left me being rather unproductive towards the end of last year. Simplifying my task manager by starting with a clean slate means I can get back to the process of finding out what works again and ensuring that it stays that way.

Brought to you by Tom Joyce.

I love these. Reminds me of the Slaine series from 2000AD.