Trapped in the busy work cycle? You need systems.

Here are the 4 simple steps I use to create new systems and claim back hours every week.

1. Define Your True Priorities:

↪ Action: Clearly identify what genuinely matters outside of your work (family time, hobbies, personal growth, etc.). This sets the ultimate goal for your system design.

→ Why it matters: Without a clear destination, you'll never know if your systems are actually freeing you up for the right things.

2. Audit Your Busywork & Bottlenecks:

↪ Action: Take an honest look at your current workweek. List every recurring task, meeting, email, and process that consumes time without directly contributing to your core value or your defined priorities. Identify where you feel stuck or overwhelmed.

→ Why it matters: You can't fix what you don't acknowledge. This step reveals the "time vampires" in your business 🧛‍♂️

3. Design Intentional Systems:

↪ Action: For each identified busywork task or bottleneck, strategise a system to automate, delegate, or eliminate it. This includes creating clear workflows, using tools like ClickUp (😉) for task management and reminders, and using AI for repeatable processes.

→ Why it matters: This is where the "intentional frameworks" come in, transforming all that day-to-day craziness into automated efficiency.

4. Implement, Automate & Iterate:

↪ Action: Put your new systems into practice. Use ClickUp to house and manage these new processes. Actively look for opportunities to automate more tasks. Regularly review and refine your systems to ensure they're truly serving your priorities.

Remember, your systems aren't static. You need to improve them to make sure they remain effective and continue to give you back valuable time for what truly matters.


Creating Efficient Systems

Knowledge management is a superpower 🦸‍♂️

Some people don't think it is though.

Here are some common objections I hear about personal knowledge management 👇

"My paper notes are enough" ✍️

Paper notes can't surface old knowledge quickly.

Digital notes? They provide access to your knowledge anytime. 💻

"Writing things down takes too long" ⏱️

Have you tried bullet journaling?
- quick notes
- like this
- of what happened

"I don't need to store my knowledge" 🤷‍♀️

Maybe you don't! And that's OK.

But I really believe that we all have valuable knowledge worth capturing.

Store it to clarify thoughts & share wisdom with the world 🗒️👥

If you enjoyed this, you can read more about applied knowledge management

"Unlock the Power of Applied Knowledge - The Productive Dad" https://theproductivedad.com/applied-knowledge-management/

The Power of Knowledge Management

ClickUp is making my work life so much easier with all their updates at the moment!

Important notifications. No more clutter!

For reference, this is what my notifications used to look like each day.

For more content like this, sign up to my weekly newsletter https://will.myflodesk.com/7f179c3a-9cc3-46f5-8f0a-dcb8d97da6ad

ClickUp: Streamlining Work Notifications

This is what I've started doing.

My newsletter is my pillar content.

Then I create content based around that.

I schedule everything for Twitter usually and cross-post to LinkedIn with some different copy.

One important thing is to make sure you don't spread yourself too thin.

Focus on one platform, cross-post to others.

Then only when you feel you have enough "brain space" as I call it, you can pick another platform to build on.

You can find me on LinkedIn too https://www.linkedin.com/in/willhelliwell

Building Your Content Strategy Around Your Newsletter

1/7 🌙 Life can hand us more than we'd like on our plate, often coupled with fewer hours of sleep than we'd prefer.

Ever wondered how to navigate your to-do list on little sleep? Here are some insights from my own experience 👇

2/7 ⏰ I found myself up at 3:30 am recently, courtesy of my daughter.

I wasn't looking forward to a sleepy day but realised productivity didn't have to suffer.

How? Delegation.

I outsourced the checking of my work to ChatGPT, freeing up time and energy.

3/7 🎯 On sleepy days, focusing on easy, routine tasks can be your best strategy.

Research suggests creative or innovative tasks are severely impaired when sleep isn't adequate.

Save your novel ideas for well-rested days.

4/7 ☕ Some coping mechanisms for a sleep-deprived day:

- Caffeine can help (though not ideal or long-term)
- Naps can do wonders (if you find the time).

Be careful not to nap too long, though, or you'll enter deep sleep and wake up feeling groggier!

5/7 🔄 When you're pressed for time, consider Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR).

This relaxation technique induces the release of serotonin. It's like hitting the reset button on your brain!

Try out this @hubermanlab video https://youtu.be/AKGrmY8OSHM

6/7 💡 In a nutshell:

Good sleep is irreplaceable for peak productivity. But when life has other plans, like a 3:30 am wake-up call from your kid, try these:

- Stick to routine tasks
- Delegate when possible
- Use caffeine sparingly
- Attempt NSDR or take a nap

7/7 💤 Most importantly, aim to get good quality sleep the next night.

Your best work happens when you're well-rested.

What strategies have you used to stay productive while sleep-deprived? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

For more insights, check out the full article on my website https://notiondad.com/blog/recent-posts/dont-lose-steam-your-guide-to-staying-productive-on-little-sleep

Productivity Tips for Sleep-Deprived Days

The new Task View 3.0 in ClickUp is beautiful 😍

My favourite thing? Being able to see a subtask's custom fields in the parent task view.

Here's a rundown of all the new features 👇

Task view 3.0 introduces new task layout options.

It supports full screen and sidebar layouts for tasks and subtasks.

You can use the Switch layout button to navigate between the three options.

In Full screen layout, the task fills your browser.

Sidebar layout lets the task move to the right side of the screen, allowing you to navigate to other locations in your Workspace.

The Subtask sidebar is a new feature that lets you easily navigate between the parent task and its subtasks.

Another feature is the improved task relationships.

All items related to the task are grouped together and easy to find!

You can create a relationship using /Slash "link to" and each relationship has a unique icon that displays after the relationship is added.

Adding or removing a watcher is now as easy as clicking the bell icon in the upper-right corner of the Activity section.

That's all the new features and updates in Task view 3.0!

ClickUp continues to improve task management and collaboration, making it easier and more efficient for teams.

Liked this? Subscribe to The Productive Dad newsletter for more
https://view.flodesk.com/pages/642f456bd462e590c547e864

Introducing Task View 3.0 in ClickUp

Ever had a 'perfect' digital tool vanish overnight? 🌙💻

That's my experience with @Zlappo, my once go-to for Twitter content scheduling 🧵

Recent Twitter API changes basically destroyed their business.

For those of us who invested in lifetime deals, it stings 😞

This is a wake-up call! It reminds us of the inherent risks tied to our digital investments.

Today, it's our trusty scheduling tools.

Tomorrow, it could be your favourite note taking app 👀 (not you, @obsdmd)

So what's next? We adapt and overcome! 💪

I've already fired off a refund request (thanks to ChatGPT for drafting it)

Meanwhile, I've been on the hunt for a new scheduling tool.

After a week of research, I've settled on another year of @typefully

Cheaper than Hypefury and fits my needs, despite a few missing features.

What's your scheduling tool of choice? 🤔

Want more? Read the full blog post https://notiondad.com/blog/recent-posts/the-unexpected-impact-of-the-twitter-api-changes

The Risks of Digital Investments: A Wake-Up Call

One of the things I use Obsidian for a lot is journaling.

Today I installed the Map View plugin. How cool will it be to navigate around a map of all my journal entries?

Tagging a location is fairly easy.

I also updated the journal entry template.

I added mood and aliases tags in the front matter to give more context to my notes.

I made a Tips callout to prompt me and remind me how to use the new map plugin.

And this is my journaling dashboard. Where I can come and review entries.

The mood and aliases tags help me decide if I want to jump into a note or not.

If you want a great tutorial on journaling with Obsidian, check out @fromserg's video https://youtu.be/zuAbrAnmTMc

Journal Maps in Obsidian

Tonight I gave ChatGPT a coding challenge.

I needed some Python code that takes a datetime string variable, adds 2 seconds to it, then returns the new variable as a string.

See the results in the thread below 👇

I've been learning and using Python for a few years now. I'm not passionate about it, it's just something I have to do in my 9-5.

It took me about 20 minutes from start to finish to come up with this working code.

ChatGPT?

~15 seconds to write a prompt.

The code is more succinct and Pythonic than what I originally wrote 🤯

The question now becomes...

Is this a good thing? AI gave me a better solution 20x faster than I could do it in.

I think AI is going to be a fantastic copilot for developers, authors, and creators in general. Don't trust it 100%, but use it to your advantage.

For the coders out there, you might've noticed that the ChatGPT solution wouldn't actually work.

You need to remove the Z from the datetime string for it to be a valid isoformat string. Then I need to add it back in at the end.

AI should be your copilot, not the one in charge.

Can ChatGPT Code?

Sunday night and I’m going through my client meeting recording from last week.

Recording meetings has been the number 1 hack for me. I’m more focused in the meeting and can review the transcription later.

Here’s my process 👇

Client books a meeting with me through @Tidy_Cal.

Using @zapier, a “task” is automatically created in @clickup with all the meeting details attached.

When it’s time for the meeting, @MeetgeekA joins automatically. It records the screen, audio and transcribes it all.

The transcription and insights take ~1 hour to arrive.

Once I have the transcription, I copy it into a ClickUp doc that’s attached to the meeting task.

I do this so I can highlight and comment on important parts. These show up as checklist tasks assigned to me inside the meeting task itself.
