I have tried most of the systems and ended, as people tend to, with the simplest one. It has three kinds of entry and one rule.
The three kinds
| Kind | What goes in it | How long it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | Anything that makes me look up | Until Sunday |
| Idea | A thought I might build on | Until it becomes something, or doesn't |
| Keep | A thing I want to be able to find again | Indefinitely |
The one rule
Every Sunday I read the week's captures and move each one to Idea, Keep, or the bin. Nothing is allowed to stay a capture for more than seven days. That single constraint does more than any app.
What I have stopped doing
- Tagging. I never searched by tag.
- Colour-coding. It looked busy and meant nothing.
- Typing everything up. The handwriting is half the memory.