Step 5. Reference Materials

Step 5 - Manage your reference material

"I usually recommend that people store their support materials out of sight. If you have a good working reference file system close enough at hand, you may find that that's the simplest way to organize them. There will be times, though, when it'll be more convenient to have the materials out and instantly in view and available, especially if you're working on a hot project that you need to check references for several times during the day."

David Allen, "Getting Things Done (GTD) and the Art of Stress-free Productivity"

Productive life doesn't start and end with to-do lists

To do lists in your projects are just the beginning of a successful productivity system. Your system however doesn't only consist of tasks and actions - you need reference material in order to keep the project running and be able to define other actions in the future. We've covered some of this during our first lesson but now we'll go more into details.

Everything you need to know about a project

My projects consist of three parts - tasks, notes and files. While I spend most of my day making sure the tasks get done, I would be lost without the remaining two parts of the puzzle - notes and files. This is why I built Nozbe the very same way. I just need to know everything there is to know about a certain project right there, on the project page in order to get things done.

Managing reference material successfully

To move a project forward, you need to define your next actions and only with a well-managed reference material you can actually know what the next action would be... or what any action would be. The key to knowing how to move a project forward is well-thought reference material management.

Powerful Notes collecting non-actionable thoughts

As I said before, each project in Nozbe consists of Tasks (Actions), Notes and Files. The Notes section is right after the tasks and it's really, really useful. Notes are helping me put my thoughts about a project. I mainly use notes for storing loose thoughts I have about a project and if I'm not sure if these thoughts will result in anything actionable. Let me show some examples.

Notes for meetings and calls

Whenever I'm on a meeting about a project or I'm on a call, I use notes to store the ideas and all the information being discussed. I don't have to think if there is an action (or next action) there, I'll think about it later - now I just store information and make sure it's all there.

Later - after the phone call or the meeting I process my notes and extract the actionable items (things I can put on this project's action list) and leave the rest back there as a note for future reference.

Ideas, addresses, other information as Notes

I also use notes to store other important project-related information like loose ideas that come to my mind and need to get them written somewhere, addresses of people involved in the project, links to other websites of reference (Notes section in Nozbe has great and easy-to-use formatting capabilities) and other useful information.

Keep your mind focused - don't read all the notes

In order to keep my mind from distractions and maintain focus, Notes in Nozbe have been designed in such a way that you can fold/unfold them as you need them (just use the black triangle next to a note). This is a great feature as in this case you can hide the contents of notes you don't need to read at the moment and focus on the ones that are important. Remember - don't overload your head with needless information. Keep all the notes you need... and read all the notes you need - at this particular moment.

Attach files and other reference material

Again, you will need more than text-only notes for your projects. You will need spreadsheets, documents, images... and other files. Keep them all together. Attach them to your projects (it's very easy with Nozbe) and keep them where they belong so that you can use them as needed.

Use Contexts... again.

The last lesson has thought us that "Contexts" are an important part of a trusted productivity system as they simply help you get things done, help you process your actions. It's no different with your reference material. While you'd normally not think about contexts for your notes and files, sometimes it's useful to set their contexts and when processing them all, have the reference material right there where you need it.

The bottom line:

To improve your productivity learn how to manage your reference material and how to keep your non-actionable information right there where you need it. Unlock the power of Notes in Nozbe and attach files to keep things organized. Stay focused when processing your reference material and use contexts to help you keep your information right before your eyes when processing your actions.