I spend a lot of time trying out different productivity tools and methods. Productivity for me is a way to keep track of things I want to do daily so that I do not miss important activities or reminders. I hate having to put in the effort to remember things or to try to recall them. The feeling that there is something that needs to be done and I might forget what it is gives me a constant sense of anxiety.

In the past year I tried out various tools. Starting with Evernote, other simple note taking tools like rememberthemilk.com and more complex ones like Obsidian I finally settled on Omnifocus.

Obsidian is amazingly easy to use. Easy here for me means, I can quickly switch to it in the middle of a meeting, add a task with a due date and get back to the conversation I was in. It comes with much more advanced functionality too – tags, repeating tasks, projects and views. Two convenience features I really love is that it is great at keyboard shortcuts and it allows daily views with some tags displaying each day even if they are not due on that day. that allows me to keep strategic tasks visible daily even if they don’t have deadlines.

The other productivity tool I acquired is the remarkable 2 electronic notebook. Writing on it feels like writing on paper, it has an E-ink display, is very light and doesn’t run out of paper. It allows relatively easy editing (cut, copy, paste) and after my phone and my kindle is a device that I always carry around. The fact that it does only note taking means it allows me to focus without any distractions. I have found myself thinking deeply without being distracted as I use the device.

Of course, these tools are not silver bullets. The hard part is being disciplined enough to remember to note down action items with due dates, be disciplined about deep thinking time and going back and rereading notes you have taken previously, all of which takes time and dedication. These tools definitely do help though.