Start here
One notebook.
Three marks. Four minutes a day.
Most people’s problem is not that they have too few tools — they have far too many. Notes on the phone, tasks in an app, deadlines in a calendar, ideas on sticky notes. And in all that complexity the thing that matters most gets lost: the ability to capture and process whatever the day throws at you.
This guide is the opposite. One notebook (or one app you already have on your phone) and a principle you can learn in a minute: whatever enters your head, write it down immediately. Your brain was not built to store tasks — it was built to create and solve them.
The marks
The daily rhythm
- Morning (2 minutes): new page, date, carry over yesterday’s leftovers, add today’s tasks.
- During the day: write everything down IMMEDIATELY. No sticky notes, no “I will note that later”. Small things too, ideas that sound silly too, and the things you are “definitely going to remember”.
- Evening (2 minutes): mark what is done (×), move what is not to tomorrow (>), check that nothing is missing.
And when the system collapses (it will): stop, dump everything out of your head, mark the three most important things — and start again. No guilt.
Checklists for the first month
Week one: the basics
- Write every current task and project into one place
- Pick ONE tool (a notebook / Apple Notes / Google Keep / Notion)
- Clear your desk and turn off the notifications you do not need
- Two minutes every morning: new page, date, today’s tasks
- Two minutes every evening: mark what is done, move the rest
Weeks 2–4: the system
- Set up an inbox and the basic project categories (GTD)
- Find your productive hours and block one deep work session a day
- Define your contexts (@home, @work, @computer)
- Schedule a weekly review (30 minutes, a fixed slot)
- Prepare your environment for focus: a ritual, a playlist, a clear desk
Every month: maintenance
- Audit the system: what works, what grinds, what to simplify
- Review projects and long-term goals, reassess priorities
- Automate one routine thing (filters, templates, shortcuts)
Three closing rules: a simple system you use beats a perfect system that is complicated. One notebook everywhere beats ten apps. Writing it down now beats remembering it later.
Once this foundation feels like second nature, carry on with the handbook — the chapters follow exactly this order.
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