What’s in a productivity system?

You can learn a lot about somebody just by learning about how they get things done. Are they the sort of person who might have a perfectly color-coded email inbox, a flawlessly organized to-do list, and what’s that, they just sent you a calendar invite for happy hour next week? Or are they more likely to have a giant pile of sticky notes they never look at, a computer desktop with so many files you can’t even see the wallpaper, and today’s main tasks written on their arm? Neither is wrong, but they’re very different. On this episode of The Vergecast, the second in our three-part miniseries about work and productivity and how to get more done in a digital world, we decide to get to know our colleagues in a new way: by asking them to share their own productivity systems. We didn’t give them much specific instruction or homework, other than to come ready to answer a question: how do you get stuff done? Eight Verge staffers showed up, with eight very different ideas about what being productive means and how best to pull it off. Along the way, we found some ideas to steal, a few new apps and tools to try, and a lot of new thoughts about our co-workers. If you want to know more about the things we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started: A Googler’s guide to getting things done TickTick Upnote Notion Google Keep Google Calendar The Rhodia #16 spiral notepad Papier’s productivity planners Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02David Pierce?

  Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of never-ending to-do lists. I'm your friend David Pierce, and this is the second episode in our three-part mini-series all about productivity, defined as loosely as possible. If you missed last week's episode, I talked to Laura May Martin, who is like Google's internal productivity guru. We talked all about tools and hustle bros and process and what it means to be productive without totally losing your mind. This week, I want to do something completely different. I have this theory that you can tell a lot about a person just by understanding how they manage their life. Are they super duper organized with a beautiful, perfect, foolproof system for making sure everything gets done?

• 0:47David Pierce?

  Do they just totally fly by the seat of their pants, trust their memory, and hope for the best? Do they like digital tools or pen and paper? AI? No AI? It's all very revealing, honestly, and it's really fun to talk to people about. So today, we're going to use this episode as an excuse to get to know a few of my coworkers. We reached out to a bunch of folks on The Verge's staff and asked them to come on the show and tell us about their productivity systems. However they wanted to find that phrase was fine by me. My goal is to learn a bunch of new ideas, steal a few for myself, and also maybe psychoanalyze my coworkers at the end of it. I'll share mine, too, but I'm gonna go last. So we're gonna get into all of it, but before we do, I have to go find my notes on who exactly we're talking to.

• 1:32David Pierce?

  And spoiler alert for my system, that's not that easy right now. This is The Vergecast. We'll be right back.

• 1:43Speaker 01

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• 2:13David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. Let's get into it. How the people at The Verge get stuff done, and whether there's anything we can learn, or steal, or ruthlessly make fun of, in all of their ideas. First up, Jay Peters, a news editor on our team. Jay Peters, tell me your productivity system.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  I have two different productivity systems, one for work and one for at home. Which would you prefer to hear about?

• 2:37David Pierce?

  Well, first I have a question, which is why think of those as separate things? Does it help you to differentiate those so completely?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. Because then I can do things on the weekend without thinking about them as work stuff. And my personal productivity system links in pretty closely to how my wife does it as well. So we can share tasks and language and communications that way. So it's like personal stuff. And then my work stuff is purely work stuff. And I can add specific reminders for work things that don't muck up my personal reminders. It's just a way for me to keep it separate.

• 3:18David Pierce?

  Okay, so let's start with the personal one. How does that work?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  So we are both fully in the Apple ecosystem. And so we rely a lot on Apple reminders and Apple Notes and Apple Calendar. For reminders, I have my own personal set of reminders. And we do a set of shared reminders, which is super useful for weekend tasks or remembering to reach out to XYZ person for their birthday, stuff like that. We have a calendar system that allows us to, if one of us has a call, we put it on our shared calendar so the other person knows, "Oh, maybe I'll not be in the office at that time." Or, "Oh, I need to remember to be there at this time for this thing." And we use Apple Notes to...

• 4:06Speaker 02

  We keep a... This is one of my favorite things that we do. We keep a running list of stuff throughout the day that we want to tell each other about. And then at like the dinner table or over lunch, we just go over our bullets of like, oh, I saw this funny thing on the internet, or, oh, we need to um, talk to our family about XYZ thing. Uh, it's been super clutch.

• 4:24David Pierce?

  That is the most adorable thing I've ever heard in my entire life, Jay.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  We've been doing it for years. It is so awesome. It is like so, so, so useful. And I think even if we didn't have, like, let's say, uh, we stop using iPhones, which I don't anticipate we'll be doing anytime soon, we'd probably just build like a shared Google Doc or something like that. Because like-

• 4:43David Pierce?

  Why share it, though? Doesn't it remove all of the surprise and fun of bringing your topics to each other when you can see the list?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Well, we sometimes write like, you know, a single note, or like a single word, or like, maybe just include the link, but the link is so giant and gross that you can't tell what it is, right, immediately?

• 5:01David Pierce?

  So she'll just put in like pants, and you get to spend the whole day being like, what is pants about?

• 5:05Speaker 02

  What is pants? Yeah, sometimes. Uh, my wife, my wife's very good at using um, uh, acronyms for names. And so usually I know what they are, but sometimes it's a surprise when like, I didn't get the right person.

• 5:17David Pierce?

  Okay. And all of this is like, shared, just shared between the two of you, so you have this like, whole collaborative system?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, for like, notes, what's kind of useful about it is we delete things off the note and they just go away. Because it's just like a series of bullets that we're like deleting and adding to over and over and over and over. For reminders, we have a bunch of like, shared reminders that like, are scheduled on a weekly or monthly basis or whatever. Like, every Sunday, we have a reminder to vacuum. Whether or not that happens is a choice that we make because like, we decide we do have time to vacuum this weekend, or we skip it and we push it another weekend. Um, and then the calendar is just a, a shared calendar of reminders and dates and, and all the stuff you need a calendar for.

• 6:01David Pierce?

  Got it. Okay. So, what about the work system? That's a surprisingly like, tight, simple, personal system. Is, is work as, as clean and perfect?

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Hmm. I keep it pretty simple at work, too. So my work reminder system is Tic Tic. Like, I just use an entirely separate reminders app. I love Tic Tic primarily because you can type like, get draft to David by 4pm, and it will know everything I need to do there in terms of like- Making a 4pm reminder, making it happen today. If I needed to get to a draft every week, I would add every week and it does it every week. And like, all that stuff is just super fast and super easy. And allows me to jot things down like the moment I think of them, so I don't lose track of them. We use Google Calendar here at The Verge and so I use that for scheduling things on my calendar. And then I also kind of live and die by my email.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  And I try really hard to keep inbox zero. I've, it's sometimes I'll end the day with like, three. I don't know if you've seen Andrew Bosworth at Meta, he talks about inbox 10, which is actually kind of a useful system where there's not the pressure of like, always getting to exactly zero at the end of the day. But thinking of it as a to-do list, keeping maybe just a couple of things you need to do in there, but otherwise like, replying to something right away or archiving it right away is pretty much what I always try and do.

• 7:25David Pierce?

  Okay, so, again, this system makes a lot of sense to me. The only thing I'm tripped up on is it feels like you've given yourself so many things to check. And like, I spend all of my time obsessively looking for one to-do list that does everything. Because I'm like, dear God, I can barely remember to open this one app and look at it often enough. You've given yourself like, six. Are you, are you just good about opening and checking these things?

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Uh huh, yeah, I mean, I think of them all as like, they're my separate spaces where I do certain tasks in certain places. And sometimes, every once in a while it gets a little mixed up, but it's a system I've used for a few years at this point. And so like, maybe if it's messy, I'm just used to it at this point.

• 8:08David Pierce?

  All right, well, you have way too healthy a relationship with your productivity tools. I find this is, this is very annoying and frustrating and making me feel bad about myself. So, go away. Jay, thank you. That was great. This was great.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Yep, great to be here. I'm sorry I made you feel bad.

• 8:21David Pierce?

  All right. Next up on the Verge productivity docket, senior reviewer Victoria Song. V Song, welcome back.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 8:28David Pierce?

  Tell me about your productivity system.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Uh, so it used to be digital and then I remembered that my memory is going to shit. And it actually is a lot better if you write things down. So it is now more than half analog with one app.

• 8:44David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  So I got so sick of all the to do apps, like even the good ones. Even I was trying super list. I was, you know, I continually miss wonder list.

• 8:53David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  And then I, you know, I'd been using to do list for years. No, I'm forced to use airtable here because we have to like collaborate and whatever. So I do use that, not as well as I should, but I do use it. Uh, but I have like, I have like four journals that I, I keep all my productivity in. But the main one, and this one was actually recommended to me by our, our former colleague, McKenna Kelly. It is the papier productivity journal and it's great because it is a actual journal where I write things down. And like the best part of the spread is that you can see a little undated schedule thing.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Like I didn't fill this day out, but an undated schedule thing of your hours, your three most important things that you need to do in the day. And then a to do list and a little space for you to write notes.

• 9:48David Pierce?

  So it gives you like the kind of daily template and you just fill it out each day. That is kind of nice.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's, it's really nice. And then I've used this as a, as a giant excuse to buy pens. So many pens in multiple different colors. This is the Patel Mad Hop. It drives mad.

• 10:05David Pierce?

  So you're one of those people who is like deep into like bullet journal Tik Tok.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Unfortunately.

• 10:10David Pierce?

  You're like studying calligraphy just to be able to write your calendar events more beautifully.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yes. Uh, I've actually been like a hobbyist calligrapher for like several years. I don't ever get better.

• 10:21David Pierce?

  This all tracks, V. This all fully tracks.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  I unfortunately don't get better, but you can't see it, but I have this entire drawer of washi tapes. I just went to New York City Stationery Fest a couple of weeks ago to buy some more washi tapes and so many stickers of cats. So this is like a whole thing. I have this whole bag full of like glue and different kinds of markers and all of these things. Do I need all of these things to write out what a bullet journal should be? No, absolutely not. But the physical act of writing things actually is quite, it helps me remember what it is that I'm supposed to do. And it helps me be very intentional

• 11:08Speaker 03

  with my day. And then what I'll do is like, once I figure out a game plan, it never goes according to plan, ever. Not once has my plan for the day ever gone according to plan. The point is, is in writing it. And so that if we get 75% of the way there, we've done a very good job. But generally, what I'll do is I'll put in like, some of my like, most important tasks that I know I absolutely do not want to do into my Pomodoro app, which is focus to do. And I've written about it for the site. It just forces you to do something for a very digestible amount of time. So like, I stick to the usual 25, five minute

• 11:50Speaker 03

  breakdown with the Pomodoro timer. And I find if there's just like a draft, I am absolutely like, I don't want to write this draft. Like theoretically, I want to write it, but the actual physical act of writing is giving me palpitations. I'll just hit, hit go. And you can do anything if it's only for 25 minutes. Like, it's amazing. So I will use that. And what I like about this particular Pomodoro timer app is that it lets you do things as to do's. So you get the really nice little like, ooh, I checked it off. This is great. And if I've like really got a stacked day and I'm just like, I mean, we all feel the days where we go to work and you're like, I don't want to do this today. Absolutely not. Capitalism has a chokehold on my existential dread today.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Uh, this is how I like basically force myself to get through it. And it's nice because I look for those like five minute breaks and I'm like, and then I'm gonna clean like furiously for five minutes.

• 12:46David Pierce?

  And it's also amazing how much you can do in five minutes.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 12:50David Pierce?

  I only have five minutes.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  It is amazing. It is amazing. Like, I can't tell you, I've gotten down to like, emptying the dishwasher down to like a four minute 55 second art. It's really great. So yeah, like, that's like what I do now. I used to do so many other different things when like, I do use Notion Calendar. Because I like that it will block off on my personal calendar, stuff on my work calendar and vice versa. That's honestly the main reason why I still use it because once they changed over from Chrome to the Notion Calendar thing, I got very mad at the icon change because it now disrupts the harmony, my aesthetic harmony of my uh, uh, taskbar.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Which is like, small potatoes, but as we've established, I'm a very aesthetic bullet journaler. It takes more time to make my spread.

• 13:42David Pierce?

  I have heard, by the way, that you and I specifically have caused a ruckus inside of Notion with our loud public hate of that icon. So we are going to continue to fight the good fight and we're gonna win someday, some way, we will, we will win.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  It's an ugly icon.

• 13:58David Pierce?

  It's an ugly icon.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  It's an ugly icon. I'm sorry. It used to be just like all my productivity apps were red. And I was so happy. And now this just sticks out. Unfortunately, it's like the best one for my use. So like, yeah, I don't, I have a choice. I'm stuck with it for now. But yeah.

• 14:17David Pierce?

  I have two quick questions about the journal.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:19David Pierce?

  One, is it just the act of physically writing it that you feel like helps you remember it enough that you don't have to like, check it every 10 minutes? Or is it still like you have it open next to you all day and you're like constantly looking at it?

• 14:31Speaker 03

  I will periodically open it just to like, be like, what's the game plan again? What are my to-dos again? Okay, cool. But actually like physically writing things down. It does help me remember things better. And like, I think there's studies showing that when you physically write stuff, you do retain the information a lot better than you would with the digital clutter. That's the main reason why I do it. It keeps me on track of things. So bullet journaling, they have like this whole iconography of like symbols. I hate it. Can't retain that stuff for the life of me. The only thing I do retain is like they use like a little sharp arrow to kind of indicate you didn't get it done. You have to migrate it to the next day. So I do

• 15:12Speaker 03

  hate it, but it does kind of give me insight into the things that I really kind of put off that would really only take me 10 minutes to do. So I'll try. Yeah.

• 15:24David Pierce?

  Yeah. And there's something too, the third day in a row, you're writing the same task that you've been moving where you're like, fine, I'll just do it. Like, leave me alone, journal. I'll just do the thing.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  I actually find it works a lot better, that annoyance than actually just like resetting the due date digitally.

• 15:40David Pierce?

  Oh, totally.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Like, there's something about like the digitalness of it that really doesn't work for my brain, which is odd, because I also wrote a story for The Verge that was like, all I want is one productivity app that does everything. It's never gonna happen, but that's all I wanted for the long time. And I actually do think that like, being obsessive and writing out every single workout that I've done for August helps me. Like visually, like, it's also insane, because I've done like 38 workouts so far in August. But I don't know, something about it. And just like, oh, let me just write down every single book I read and my four, like, four-word review of them, or just, it just helps me be intentional. It's like

• 16:24Speaker 03

  a five-minute break at the end of my day. It lets me not look at the horribleness of Airtable and getting mad at how everyone else is using it wrong compared to me, because I am the only one using it correctly. It's not true, but that's just how.

• 16:40David Pierce?

  By not using it very much, I think, is that what you're saying?

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I used to use it so much, and I got so frustrated with how everyone else at The Verge uses it, that I was just like, screw this. Like, I can't, I can't handle it anymore.

• 16:52David Pierce?

  Does the journal go everywhere with you, by the way? Or does it like live on your desk and you come back to it at the beginning and end of the day?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  It lives on my desk and I come back to it at the end of the day. Like I do notice that on days that I go to the office, I tend to like fall off for that one day. So if you look at my journal, the Thursdays, which are the days I most often go into the office, completely blank most of the time, but that's okay. It's like not intended to be perfect. That's why I use undated journals. I used to use the dated ones and then the pressure of filling every single day would just like make me not use it. So it's all undated. It's all loosey goosey where it's, I stopped being too precious and pretty with all of my spreads because then that was too much pressure to be like, oh my God, it's the 30th or the 31st of the month.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  I have to spend four hours calligraphy-ing a spread with stickers and transfer papers and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, no, no, like now we're, I'm a normal person now and I just mostly write stuff and I make things pretty for my brain and that's about it.

• 17:56David Pierce?

  I love that for you.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, also pens.

• 17:59David Pierce?

  You're, I know, more pens. I just can't get over this convention you went to, but we'll, we'll talk about that another time. Thank you as always, Bea.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  No problem.

• 18:06David Pierce?

  Next on my productive person list is Cara Verlani, The Verge's managing editor. Unprompted, three of the five people were like, I just don't, I don't, I don't know how I'm going to compare to Cara.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  So what's funny is like, there's a rumor that's been started about me and I did not start this rumor that I am like this hyper organized person and I am not actually. I am very rudimentary in my productivity software that I use to keep myself organized.

• 18:36David Pierce?

  Yes, let's just dive in. Tell me about your productivity system.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  I take a lot of notes is basically the long and the short of it. I take notes all the time. Um, my tip for myself that I learned long ago is that if I don't write it down, I don't know it. So if I'm in a meeting, I take notes. I went to the doctor last week. She was saying a bunch of stuff. I wasn't going to remember that, so I took notes. I usually default reach for just the notes app on my phone because I don't need a bunch of AI summaries and prompts and ways to streamline and all of that stuff. Because I actually think all of that is distraction, distracting and makes you less productive. So I like the stuff that's pretty basic.

• 19:19David Pierce?

  So is your notes app like just an unbelievably long series of individual notes? Or do you have like a, do you have a notes system?

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Uh, it's an unbelievably long series of individual notes. Uh, but they do all have titles so that I can find them very quickly. Because it often comes up where someone's like, oh, what did I say? Or, and I'm like, I'm a Scorpio, I need receipts. Like, so I always am able to find, uh, what I'm searching for, which is very handy. But yeah, I don't, I don't interact with technology perhaps as much as, uh, some folks think. I do a lot of handwritten post-its.

• 19:57David Pierce?

  Do you have a to-do list?

• 19:59Speaker 04

  I do have a to-do list, yes.

• 20:01David Pierce?

  Tell me about it.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  It moves, it shifts based on where I am. I sit in multiple places during the day, uh, so that I can be closest to the sun. And so if I'm-

• 20:11David Pierce?

  Cat, basically, okay.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm, I'm a plant, I just mingle. Um, so if I'm at my desk, my to-do list is like a big wall calendar that I keep. Um, I obviously keep things on my phone, my phone and my work computer do not talk to each other. Uh, cause I think that that's important. So I often have two things, I have like work Cara and then I have life Cara. Um, and they don't interact with each other, but my Google Calendar interacts.

• 20:35David Pierce?

  But that's the only, that, that's the only system that's allowed to overlap?

• 20:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, I try not to keep like, if I, I was, uh, out of town the past two days and I took Slack off my phone. So I try to be very, uh, separate when I can be.

• 20:50David Pierce?

  Is that a like life-work balance thing? Or why keep them so far apart?

• 20:55Speaker 04

  I just think it's like, it's kind of a scam. Productivity is kind of a scam because you feel like the more time that you spend plugged into the thing is like making you better. But actually it's just wasting your time from doing the thing that needs to get done. And this is not to say that I don't procrastinate because I do. I wait until the last minute to do literally everything, but, um, there's something about like- Having to plug it into a thing so that I can cross it like that just doesn't make sense to me. So often.

• 21:22David Pierce?

  Ah, so the idea of like, it feels good to check something off of your to do list does nothing for you.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  It like does. Sometimes if I'm like starting at like the top of a day and I know that I'll get something done in five minutes. Sometimes I get that little like buzz, but oftentimes I'm like, I'm just gonna get the thing done. Um, so I don't really like do a ton of task tracking through my various uh moments of every day. It's kind of just like taking notes and just remembering what was said and what I need to get done from that.

• 21:51David Pierce?

  Got it. Okay. Do you spend a lot of time like going back and reviewing your notes afterwards?

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Okay. I pour of them constantly because that from my notes is what I know my next steps are. If I need to add something to my calendar, if I need to follow up with someone, if I need to schedule a meeting, like everything comes out of my notes. So it's kind of like a brain dump and then I take from that.

• 22:11David Pierce?

  Okay. I think that is actually less chaotic than you're making it sound like. What what's interesting though, is I think the the thing I hear from a lot of like, you know, quote unquote productivity experts is like the first step is like write everything down. Right? I think you're actually like way ahead of the game on that one. And then step two is like, take all the stuff that's in there and make like a beautiful task system out of it. And then step three is just get everything done. And you just skip step two, which I find fascinating. You just go through the notes and you're like, okay, here's the stuff. I'm just gonna go do the stuff. Instead of like plugging it all into some incredibly organized middleware to do list system.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Correct. Because that's the stuff that I think is sucking your brain out of your body is just like making things color coded and beautiful. Cause like who, unless you're sharing it with someone that like really needs to know exactly what you're doing every minute of the day. But I operate very independently in my work life and my personal life. And so I don't have like a ton of people that need to know every detail of how I'm spending my my moments.

• 23:13David Pierce?

  Okay. Are you, I know for sure that you're a like calendar person at work because you have to be. Are you a calendar person not at work?

• 23:21Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. Yeah.

• 23:22David Pierce?

  Yeah. Are you like sending friends calendar invites when you're hanging out on Saturday?

• 23:26Speaker 04

  So I only do that with people that know me really well. I don't like, if I make a new friend, I'm not like, we're gonna get drinks on Saturday. Like, I don't do that because that would be like next level. But if people know me really well, I also have a dear friend of mine who does that with me. Like, we're going to a wedding at the end of September and she already sent me the calendar invite for like when we need to be where, which I appreciate. I like it.

• 23:47David Pierce?

  There's something honestly, like truly wonderful about that.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:50David Pierce?

  Like, my immediate reaction is to be horrified by that, but the longer I think about it, I'm like, I love this.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:55David Pierce?

  Like, this is great. We are doing this together. Put it on my calendar. Let's go.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's flattering when someone takes the time to like think of you and they're like, hey, they would probably appreciate like knowing that I'm telling them where to be, that I'm bossing them around. That's flattering. I think there's like, uh, there's like an element too of if I don't, again, if I don't write it down, I won't remember it. But if I write something down, it's in my head. So there will be some like vague recollection that someone quoted me, you know, something to come fix my car. And it's like, actually, I know that you said it was $737 because I know I wrote that down. So like, it's kind of like a weird photographic thing that happens to me. So even if I have like a workout class or like something like that, I put it on my calendar because then I won't forget that that's what's happening that night. So.

• 24:39David Pierce?

  Okay. That makes sense. So the remembering it because you wrote it down thing is really interesting because I've talked to a couple of people on our staff for this episode who have said the reason they switched to like analog notebooks is because the act of writing longhand helped them remember.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:56David Pierce?

  And it's true, right? Like, there's tons of science that says if you handwrite, you remember better than if you type. Have you, and I half expected you to be a person who like lifted up your giant trapper keeper of a notebook and you're like, look at this organizational system. Have you ever been that kind of person?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. Yes. I have, like I said, it just depends on where I'm seated, what kind of thing I use to keep track of things. So if I'm at my desk, which I'm not right now, I have like folders and post-its and calendars and a thing of my, like, that's how I kind of organize myself. But when I'm not, I'm kind of left to. More minimalist devices. So I think it just kind of depends on where, but for me, I think maybe this is what you're asking. It doesn't matter if I'm typing it or if I'm writing it, like same result as long as it's going somewhere. I think this is also just like a, our age group thing was told, like maybe in college that like writing things down is how you remember, like I just think like that's just people think that way. And maybe it's true. I don't know. It is for me.

• 25:55David Pierce?

  I think the thing that I've found that works is I do it much more slowly. Like I type really fast and I don't write by hand that fast. So there is something to the like, you have to, I think the, the, I had a professor once who described it as like, you can transcribe when you're typing, but because you can't write as fast as someone can talk, you have to kind of synthesize as you go. And it's actually making your brain work and that's really useful. And I totally get that. I also just hate writing by hand. I just, I just, I'm done writing by hand. It's 2024, handwriting is over.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  Do you have good penmanship?

• 26:25David Pierce?

  No.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  So that's probably why.

• 26:27David Pierce?

  That's my real problem. I, I, my wife makes fun of me because I have like, like literally there will be like a, a, you know, postcard written by a kindergartner on someone's fridge and Anna will point at it and be like, that looks like your handwriting.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:39David Pierce?

  And she's right. It's terrible.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  That's nice. Yeah. I feel very proud of my penmanship. So that's probably a part of it is like,

• 26:46David Pierce?

  That helps.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  You know, when you're like in a group setting and someone's like, who has good handwriting? I'm always like, give me.

• 26:51David Pierce?

  Ah, yeah. I, I run from those rooms. That is not, under no circumstances should I be allowed to write on the whiteboard for everybody.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  But I do think there's something to that. There's like a slightly performative nature. If you're doing something with someone else and you're handwriting it, because you're like, they have to be able to understand what I'm saying here versus typing it. You're like, they'll get it. They don't have to worry about that element. So, you know, part of it is just like, is this for me to remember that I need to like, go pick up my dog from doggy daycare? Or is this for like somebody else to know what I'm doing? You know?

• 27:22David Pierce?

  It is amazing how far write everything down gets you. Like that, that is one of the big takeaways I've gotten from talking to people about this. Like kind of at all levels of it, that like, if you just write everything down, most other things kind of start to solve themselves.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  I'm going to be really interested to see if there's any communication increase after this podcast, because I'm curious to see how many people say they write everything down. And then I'm going to be like, Bob, where, what's the deadline? You know?

• 27:50David Pierce?

  Yeah. A bunch of liars, it turns out.

• 27:53David Pierce?

  All right. Thank you, Kara.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  No problem.

• 27:55David Pierce?

  All right, we gotta take a break and then we're gonna keep going. I'm having so much fun with this. I'm already learning so much. We got more to do. We'll be right back.

• 28:07Speaker 05

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• 28:16Speaker 06

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• 28:39David Pierce?

  All right, we're back, and I have many more productivity questions for all of my friends here at The Verge. Next up, we have Esther Cohen, The Verge's Associate Director of Audience Development. Esther Cohen, hello. Welcome to The Vergecast. First time on The Vergecast, this is a huge day.

• 28:53Speaker 07

  Hello.

• 28:55David Pierce?

  Tell me about your productivity system.

• 28:56Speaker 07

  If you can call it that.

• 28:59Speaker 07

  I would say I am an old-school gal who likes to check, you know, have a checklist and check off boxes. So anything that involves a checklist is my friend. What that looks like at work is usually Google Docs. I love a good doc. I sometimes get fancy with it and organize it and put dates on things, but it's generally just like, here's all the things I have to do, and we're gonna check it.

• 29:21David Pierce?

  So are you like, you have one doc called like My To-Do List that everything lives in? Or are you like, every time you get a new thing to do, you make a new beautiful Google Doc and start from there?

• 29:29Speaker 07

  It's both, right? So I have my to-do list in life and at work that I just run, like, run through and add things and take things away from. And then I project base have lists that, you know, a lot of the memos that I write or project trackers that I put together are just glorified Google Docs with checklists that I just... You know, assign different people to different things like, but it's just it gets checked as it gets done. So that's like my number one way in which I organize my life and my work and get everything done.

• 30:01David Pierce?

  Why Google Docs? So I love Google Docs, but I loathe using Google Docs on my phone, which is the reason I don't do what you're describing. So I'm curious, why Google Docs?

• 30:10Speaker 07

  I love Google Docs because it's the closest thing to a piece of paper. And so that's why I use it. Again, old, old school here. I don't really use my phone for productivity. I guess that's a good thing to mention here. I feel like when I'm in getting things done mode, it's gonna be me and my computer, typing away and looking at things and having my eighty seven tabs open. My phone is more for fun and to hear from my kids and my husband. Um, besides for that, like, so I guess that that doesn't really answer your question about how it's bad on the phone, because I don't use it on my phone.

• 30:41David Pierce?

  Right. That's a totally fair answer. Yeah, I'm the opposite. We're like, for me, I am constantly, like, the only reason I ever remember to do anything is because I write stuff down on my phone all the time. And if I had to wait till I was back at my computer, I would forget everything. And so Google Docs becomes a total nonstarter for me.

• 30:55Speaker 07

  Oh, well, I do that also. But here's what I do. I um, text myself, remind, like, things that I wanna remember. So that is my own chaotic personal system is I will text myself, whether it's like a link to something that I wanna buy, whether it's a reminder to do something, like anything. And then that gets transferred to my to do list when I'm sitting in front of my computer. So if I'm sitting down to write a grocery list, let's say, I can't do that on my phone. That has to be on my, and like I said, Google Docs is for my work life. For my personal life, I use the Notes app on the Apple, Apple Notes, so lame. But that's, it has a really, really good uh, check feature, so. But again, if I'm trying to get things done, whether it's like to plan a menu

• 31:36Speaker 07

  or figure out school supplies for the kids or whatever, I'm sitting down and typing on my computer. I'm not doing that on my phone.

• 31:44David Pierce?

  Does it help like? Organize your life a little bit where like when I'm sitting at my computer, I can, I can do, you know, like capital P productive things.

• 31:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 31:52David Pierce?

  And then I close the computer and I don't have to do those things anymore.

• 31:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think it's helpful because I just, I feel like when I'm on the computer, I'm full, it's more, I'm more focused. Um, whereas my phone is like the opposite of focus for me. It's just like jumping from like social media apps to streaming apps, to the news, to notifications, to so and so's calling me and texts and WhatsApps. Um, so I just like being from my computer. Sometimes I mute texts if I need to focus really more. And that's like my work time, that's my getting things done time. And I think also like, again, this is, I'm showing my age, but like bigger screen, easier to just like picture the thing you need to picture, look at the full thing you need to do. I'm much more comfortable browsing the internet on my laptop browser than I am on my phone.

• 32:36Speaker 07

  Like, I feel like it's, the phone is too small and too confined. And so if I need to look something up or anything like that, it just, I'm much more comfortable on the computer than I am on my phone, so.

• 32:48David Pierce?

  Okay. What about calendar? I like, you're, you're a person who has a lot of meetings at work, so I assume your calendar is very important, but are you like a, are you a calendar person in general? Like, are you the one who's throwing, like, take out the trash in your calendar with a reminder every week kind of vibes?

• 33:03Speaker 07

  So if it's a spectrum, I'm definitely not all the way on that side, but I'm also not on the like, ignore the calendar side. Um, I would say I am really into calendar. I rely on my Google Calendar so much, but I'm not at the point where like I want to have a shared Gcal with my husband. Like, we're not like, that's not like, I'm not like, and I know a lot of people do that and they love it. Like, I don't need to do that. Like, no thanks.

• 33:28David Pierce?

  Are you the holdup there or is your husband the holdup there?

• 33:31Speaker 07

  I think we are both very happy not to, not to be, not to be that efficient as a family together, you know, like that's too much pressure.

• 33:38David Pierce?

  So when you have a thing that you all have to do together, how do you, who, how, how does it happen?

• 33:44Speaker 07

  I put it in my calendar, he puts it in his calendar, we remind each other, we just remember.

• 33:49David Pierce?

  Would you send him a calendar invite?

• 33:51Speaker 07

  No, no, no, no.

• 33:52David Pierce?

  Okay, that's too much too.

• 33:53Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's too much. I, I would not take it well if you did that to me. I feel like that's very aggressive, thank you very much.

• 34:01David Pierce?

  It's like date night sends you an invite to your work email.

• 34:04Speaker 07

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, thanks. Um, but, but I would say at work especially, I do like to be really strict with my calendar. More because I think it's like it gives you permission to focus on that task when you when you're doing it. So like I try to even sometimes if my meetings get canceled, I won't take them off my calendar because I'll want to spend that thirty minutes or that hour working on the things I would have done in that meeting anyways. So like I'm really good at getting things on the calendar, not super uptight about like canceling things in advance or whatever. Like it's more about just setting those times up as I'm setting up my week and setting up my month or whatever it is.

• 34:40David Pierce?

  Got it. Okay, that makes sense. So anything else that when you think about the like how Esther lives her life system, does anything else belong in that system?

• 34:48Speaker 07

  Yes, I would say, uh, let me think how to phrase this. I would say there's a step before making a to do list, I think sometimes, which is like, what are the things I care about when I'm when I'm embarking on this project, right? So I do a lot of like, you could call it journaling, you call it brainstorming, or just kind of like vibing. But I like to have a written down vibe session with myself of just like, what are the things that I need to, that are what are like the pillars of this project, or what are the things I need to solve for when I'm doing this project? Before I sit down and then break down the actual to do list. It's really helpful because that kind of defines the buckets of work as you're gonna start doing them. And it also serves as like your guide to like making sure you're always staying on track and hitting those original goals.

• 35:33Speaker 07

  Um, the other thing, which is much, that was like the macro answer, this is the micro answer. Um, is I like to, especially when I'm doing, you know, I work on a lot of group projects and I work um with a lot of different departments a lot of the time. Um, I assign stakeholders to everything, like even if it's like, you know, blink your eyes, like I will literally put up, put a, assign a stakeholder because I think it's really important to just always have the person who's accountable to do the thing written down in everything you do. Otherwise, that's when things don't get done. If people are like, oh, I thought you were doing it. No, I thought you were doing it. Um, and sometimes that's funny, right? Like I'll be in meetings with like VPs or executives and I'll be like, okay, so just pause everyone, like, so who's gonna do the thing you all said we should be doing?

• 36:15Speaker 07

  Um, and it's awkward and funny, but I find that it helps me get things done when I know like who is in charge of doing everything.

• 36:21David Pierce?

  I love that. Uh, all right, Esther, this is you came in saying I have no system. This is actually like a surprisingly thoughtful system. I'm kind of impressed.

• 36:30Speaker 07

  Is it? Is it though? We'll see.

• 36:33David Pierce?

  Listen, I would get you out of Google Docs, but otherwise I feel like you're doing fairly well.

• 36:36Speaker 07

  I think my church and state with phone and my computer is a good thing. So I can stay in Google Docs for now.

• 36:43David Pierce?

  I agree with that. Awesome. Esther, thank you.

• 36:45Speaker 07

  Thanks for having me.

• 36:47David Pierce?

  I'm starting to sense a theme here with a lot of these, but I'll come back to that. Let's keep going. Up next, senior producer Victoria Barrios. Victoria, describe to me your productivity system.

• 36:59Speaker 08

  So for my own life, I have a like three block system, basically. So I have a wide like eagle eye view. I have like a weekly view and then I have like thoughts and notes. And the way those are broken up is above me, if you're ever in a meeting with me, I might be looking up because I have a three month calendar breakdown full of sticky notes of like main events for my personal life or work life. And that's the best way for me to like see both work and personal.

• 37:30David Pierce?

  Like a big paper calendar with sticky notes?

• 37:32Speaker 08

  Full of sticky notes, easy to reference. And then for like my everyday like weekly tasks, I have a Google Sheet that is broken up by the different team functions. So because of my role, I am like integrating in a lot of different aspects of production, but also like editorial management, special projects. So I have it like literally broken down one day, Wednesday, Friday, and then sponsorships, operations, production. And then I spend about 20 minutes a day before my day begins, filling out my tasks. And usually-

• 38:07David Pierce?

  So you're just like, these are the buckets of my job? And then you kind of fill out each bucket each day?

• 38:12Speaker 08

  Exactly. And then I have this like loose notebook at me, next to me at all times, taking notes during meetings, whether they're like actual direct tasks or thoughts that I have while someone else is speaking, especially depending what kind of meeting it is. Like I just had an operations meeting with Cara and Sarah, who are also two of the most organized people at The Verge.

• 38:34David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 38:36Speaker 08

  And for that one, it's like, I usually have tasks to do. Like I go in with the list of things I want to discuss, written into this notebook, and then I have the tasks that I go away from. I take everything written in this and then I'll put it onto that weekly calendar. And then I'll make sure that weekly calendar is working back from the big three month calendars. I feel crazy, like I'm describing this to you. I feel crazy.

• 38:59David Pierce?

  No, I actually, I think you've actually described like a surprisingly like catchall system that kind of collects everything. But what is tripping me up is, is the mix of digital and analog. Because you're like, you're taking all your notes physically, but then you like live inside of a spreadsheet. But then your most important stuff is on a physical like wall calendar. So particularly with the like sitting there at your computer during a meeting, taking notes, why do that on paper instead of like in a Google Doc or whatever notes app you feel like using?

• 39:32Speaker 08

  I feel like that's more of like a, a social courtesy. So I don't, I don't want to look at another screen while I'm speaking to someone taking notes. I also don't want to like break my, cause like visually unless I have a huge monitor, which I don't. So maybe this will change in the future. But if I want to be looking at the computer and looking at the person, I'd have to like split my windows to then be taking notes. It really comes down to like one, like social courtesy and another being like the amount of space I have on my windows and how cluttered I want that to feel. So the Excel like weekly stuff, I'm not looking at that constantly. I'm not referencing that constantly unless

• 40:14Speaker 08

  I finish a task. So I have a task, you break around for like an hour, 20 minutes, whatever it is, X amount of time throughout the day, I don't need it. And I don't want a window that I constantly need. I've tried like the Google, like Google Notes or Google Keep or Google, yeah, I tried that. And I found that I kept having to go to like a certain tab to keep that open. It's not flush across all screens and all tabs and all programs. So the two paper things helped me keep that, like keeping it flush across it, no matter what I'm working into or what program I'm looking into. And I reference them constantly. Like I'm constantly looking at these calendars. I'm constantly talking about when things should be published and who's doing what and where.

• 41:00David Pierce?

  I'm realizing now, I've never really thought about this, but just having like an at a glance thing that is just like, here are the one or two most important things on days is so helpful. Like this happens to me all the time where it's just like, oh, somebody is like, can we do this thing two weeks from Thursday? And being able to just look up and be like, oh, what's two weeks from Thursday? And just have like the one or two main things for that day seems so useful. Uh, I think I'm gonna end up stealing that idea from you.

• 41:27Speaker 08

  Yeah, please do. It's probably my proudest like moment of realization. Looking at my desk for four years.

• 41:36David Pierce?

  So why a spreadsheet, by the way, for all the weekly stuff? Is that because you're like working with other people and sharing that stuff? Or you're just like a spreadsheet person? I know from experience, you are a bit of a spreadsheet person, uh, but I'm curious why it works for you.

• 41:48Speaker 08

  I'm a thousand percent proud spreadsheet girl. Uh, and I, I think it's, it's super versatile. So I keep my spreadsheet super easy and I think it's a matter of it's adaptable. So something like Airtable, which I love also, it's too, I think, sharing focused. And like, you need to follow the rules that Airtable brings up and it is very adaptable and versatile in its own ways. Whereas in an Excel sheet, or sorry, in a, in a Google Sheet or Excel Sheet, like I could build that no matter what. I've not, I haven't always had it broken down into the three buckets of my position. Like way back when in the day, it used to just be, you know, five columns, six rows, and like, I'd call that, you know, a working day.

• 42:34Speaker 08

  But now I could like, I have a note section like throughout the week if I need to like, remind myself of like, oh, you know, this is this coming up. A catchall again, because I'd never want anything to slip through the cracks, even though it will maybe eventually, but it's just very versatile.

• 42:48David Pierce?

  Okay, that makes sense. I, I have become like a reluctant spreadsheet person and I'm, I sort of hate that I've become a spreadsheet person, but I'm slowly becoming a spreadsheet person for that exact reason. And it's like, the more I learn about how to make spreadsheets, the more fun it is to make spreadsheets. Like I just learned how to do the thing where you take a bunch of cells and just turn it into one big white box that you can just write in. Ah, ah, feels so good. Now I'm just like taking notes and spreadsheet. It's bad times. What about all the stuff out of work? Like when you're not at work, are you as sort of ruthlessly organized in like personal tasks and, and personal life and all that stuff?

• 43:24Speaker 08

  Uh, no, I've admitted myself to being a digital hoarder. So like I have, I'm one of those people that has like way too many photos on my phone, too many unread messages. And I've tried, I think what it comes down to is like, I also like the luxury of just letting life happen. And so just, you know, whatever email comes through, whatever notifications come through, I'll read them when I can. And it's kind of like a snapshot of just what I can get through in a day. Whereas if I keep trying to focus of organizing every moment, then I don't enjoy like what's actually happening. Cause if that also happens at work, right? That's why I also have these notes, like why it's so important for me to be looking at someone while taking notes.

• 44:07Speaker 08

  It's because I don't want to like take myself away from the creativity of it all. I know that sounds way more like prophetic or philosophical than.

• 44:14David Pierce?

  I was gonna say, that's a pretty profound insight about digital life right there.

• 44:20Speaker 08

  So no, I would say like the biggest buckets I have is like the, these big calendars for my personal, like how I'm organizing, but how I organize when I'm like in a team setting is very different. Because how I understand how other people are taking information is going to be very different. So.

• 44:38David Pierce?

  This is why you're a good producer, because there's like, you're like left to my own devices. Just let chaos reign, but I understand that other people are less chaotic. And so I'm gonna have to, this is like you just described why you're good at your job and that's, that's very good.

• 44:53Speaker 08

  That's good, at least.

• 44:56David Pierce?

  All right. Awesome. Victoria, thank you very much. This was super fun. Next on my list, we have Jake Kastranakis, The Verge's executive editor.

• 45:03Speaker 09

  I, for the longest time, just wrote down a manual to do list in TextEdit every day. I wanted it to be as ugly and simple as possible.

• 45:14David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 45:14Speaker 09

  Very quickly realized that doesn't work. You need a, a real system of to do's that can alert you at certain times on certain days. So eventually I found TicTic, which has been a game changer for me and I've relied on it for years now. So 99% of my organization is in TicTic.

• 45:33David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 45:34Speaker 09

  Professional, but also like personal too.

• 45:36David Pierce?

  So just everything you have to do, whenever, wherever, whatever, ends up in Tic Tic in some way?

• 45:41Speaker 09

  I literally, I have reminders to talk to my friends in Tic Tic. I, yeah.

• 45:48David Pierce?

  I mean, I do too. I'm laughing, I'm laughing out of, like, it feels good to know that it's not just me, not at you, don't worry.

• 45:54Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah, no, Kara has like mocked me for being like, oh, I see, I was a to do for you today to say hi.

• 46:02David Pierce?

  On a normal day of work, how many to do's would you say are in your Tic Tic?

• 46:08Speaker 09

  Oh, God, it's, okay, so it's probably like 10.

• 46:11David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's not so bad.

• 46:13Speaker 09

  The reason is that I don't rely on a, on a calendar. And so I have all, my entire calendar duplicated into Tic Tic. So Tic Tic isn't just my to do's, it's also my meetings.

• 46:25David Pierce?

  Wait, so you write a to do with a time for every meeting that you have to go to?

• 46:29Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 46:30David Pierce?

  Listen, Jake, I'm not judging, I'm just asking, but I'm also, I'm, on this one, to be honest, I'm slightly judging. Because Tic Tic has like a whole calendar thing where you can sync your calendar to Tic Tic?

• 46:39Speaker 09

  Okay, they do, I tried paying for it, it's like their only paid premium feature. And I was like, you know what, I should pay these guys some money. And so I paid for it and it was total chaos, it was terrible. And then, as it turned out, and like, maybe edit this out, turns out if you stop paying them, they don't turn it off. So.

• 46:59David Pierce?

  Okay, cool.

• 47:00Speaker 09

  I'm not recommending anybody do that, but I, I may still have access to some of their calendar features. Yeah, but basically that is what I do, I, if somebody sends me a Google Calendar invite, I accept it in Google. And then I go over to Tic Tic and I type it in. Because I don't know how to get the alert from Google Calendar, I don't have a Google Calendar app that's real pretty and nice and simple. Yeah, just, I just want a nice little list.

• 47:24David Pierce?

  Okay, so you, you like, your days are basically, you like, wake up and just sort of follow your Tic Tic list down through the day?

• 47:30Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a mix of untimed, just like general to do's at the top. And then, uh, I've got my list of like basically meetings after that. And then, you know, very pleasantly check them off and you can set things to repeat the next day, the next week, next month.

• 47:47David Pierce?

  So do you check your calendar essentially never?

• 47:51Speaker 09

  No, I still check my calendar all the time.

• 47:53David Pierce?

  Okay, just in case?

• 47:54Speaker 09

  I guess the visual element of checking the calendar is still helpful and I don't get that from the to do list. Which is weird, because otherwise I don't find the calendar, I find it overwhelming.

• 48:04David Pierce?

  There is something, so I, as you well know, as the person who edits most of my stories, I have been writing about calendar apps for forever. And one of the things I have found fascinating about calendar apps is that they're mostly terrible, but the like, time grid might be perfect. Like, we might have just solved it when it comes to like, quickly looking at a thing and getting a sense of what's going on and when. Lots of people have tried to do a new job and the time grid might just be perfect. And I have gone through the same thing, where like, a list of stuff I have to do doesn't like, communicate the same level of understanding that just like, quickly opening my calendar and looking at it does.

• 48:41Speaker 09

  Yeah, a list is perfect for me personally, if I'm just planning out my own day. But as soon as somebody says, "When are you free?", or as soon as I have to figure out when I mix in with somebody else's schedule, just gotta go to the calendar app.

• 48:55David Pierce?

  Totally. Are you a person, like, do you, every morning or every night, like, sit down and make a plan? Or do you just like, show up and see what Tic-Tac has for you?

• 49:03Speaker 09

  Oh god, no. Yeah, I just like, if it is either in there or it's not.

• 49:07David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 49:08Speaker 09

  Yeah. If it's not, then I'm forgetting somebody's birthday.

• 49:13David Pierce?

  Okay. That's, listen, I buy it. So do you have things like, you see a, you see a link that you wanna come back to? Where does that go?

• 49:22Speaker 09

  A link that I wanna come back to? Oh.

• 49:24David Pierce?

  It just stays as an open tab until it destroys your computer, doesn't it?

• 49:28Speaker 09

  Yeah, no, that's 100%.

• 49:29David Pierce?

  That's most people's answer, and it makes me so sad, but it is the answer. I just leave it as an open Chrome tab until my computer beachballs, and then many of them are gone. And that's just what it is.

• 49:40Speaker 09

  That's the cycle of life.

• 49:43David Pierce?

  What's your stance on email these days?

• 49:45Speaker 09

  That's an existential question. Email is sort of like my like, B-tier to-do list.

• 49:52David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 49:53Speaker 09

  Email is like, I leave a lot of things to be like, I gotta get back to that. Now, the problem is when I have to respond to somebody, and then I'm like, mm, it's been a month. Feel bad about this. My inbox is a total, total, I do clear it out. I aim for inbox zero. But like, that requires archiving like, 100 emails a day, because I get so much nonsense. But it is like- I don't know. I guess email is mostly like a secondary to-do list for me. So I check Tic Tic and then I go over to my email and I'm like, oh, okay, what do I actually have to do?

• 50:27David Pierce?

  Okay, yeah, I feel like we are a weird example because like more than any company I've ever worked at, Vox Media just like does not use email. Like, we are so Slack-run as a company that I think we have a different relationship with our inboxes than most. Where like, if I got an email from Neelai, I would literally assume it was spam. I'd be like, why on earth would Neelai email me? But that's not how it works most places. So I think we've all like, but then because we're like, we're people in a newsroom whose email addresses are mostly public, we get more email than most people and we get more crap email than most people. So I feel like I have reached a point where I've realized like my own email habits have nothing in common with most normal people's email habits.

• 51:09Speaker 09

  Yeah, I always see journalists complaining about email and I'm like, right. I don't think most people get like 200 spam pitches every day. Like, and if they are, like, I don't know, I have a lot of questions, but yeah. I think that we are unique there and like probably email is fine if you are getting a more manageable amount of it.

• 51:31David Pierce?

  Yeah, yeah, that seems right. So, okay, one more Tic Tic question and then I'll let you go. Tic Tic on your computer versus Tic Tic on your phone? Do you spend more time with one or the other? Do you think about them differently?

• 51:43Speaker 09

  It's 95% on my computer.

• 51:45David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 51:46Speaker 09

  But the fact that it is cross-platform, I'm pretty sure it's Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, web as well.

• 51:53David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's everywhere.

• 51:53Speaker 09

  That was big for me because I use a Mac and I use an Android phone.

• 51:57David Pierce?

  Yeah, you're like a unicorn in the tech universe.

• 51:59Speaker 09

  I don't know what's wrong with me, but most of the beautiful to-do apps are Apple ecosystem only and would like to be able to change platforms whenever I'd like. And it's important to be able to get, this is other things for the next, but Tic Tic, it'll send me reminders on my phone as well. So if I'm running late for a meeting, I'll look down at my phone and it'll tell me that I'm running late. So it's 90% on the Mac, but having the ability to quickly add things and quickly check things on the phone, key.

• 52:25David Pierce?

  Any feature requests? What would you change about your system if you could change something?

• 52:30Speaker 09

  I mean, look, it's a mostly free app that's like slightly buggy and broken, but does absolutely everything you could dream of. I wouldn't change a thing.

• 52:38David Pierce?

  That sounds like every to-do list app. I love it. Mostly buggy, wouldn't change anything.

• 52:42Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 52:44David Pierce?

  Awesome. All right, Jake, thank you.

• 52:46Speaker 09

  Got speed.

• 52:47David Pierce?

  All right, we have to take one more break and then I have two more people to talk to and then I'll share my own system at the end. We'll be right back.

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• 53:30David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. Time to continue Verge Productivity Sharing Feelings time. Up next, Antonio Di Benedetto, a commerce and deals writer on our team.

• 53:40Speaker 10

  So my productivity system's like really simple. I've tried different things like going back years ago, like Wunderlist and whatever. And I've, but it basically boils down to like to-do lists, right, is like how I keep myself on task. And I've just for a few years now, just settled in on, I have a notebook next to me on my desk and I write down what I need to get done for the day. And the way I make it a little treat is I use a cadre of fountain pens that I have at my disposal that I continue to buy, even though I probably still don't justify using them enough, aside from this one little thing with my to-do list.

• 54:21David Pierce?

  Like how many pens are we talking?

• 54:22Speaker 10

  Oh, shoot. I might be over a dozen.

• 54:24David Pierce?

  Okay, that's not so terrible.

• 54:26Speaker 10

  I've got a drawer. I've got a drawer. I've got a drawer and it's like, it might be over, it might be like getting close to two dozen now. I don't know. It's somewhere in that range.

• 54:34David Pierce?

  So you like sit down in the morning and, and just sort of write out the day you're gonna have?

• 54:39Speaker 10

  Basically, yeah. And sometimes if I move to the couch from my desk, or I'll just take my notepad, notebook with me, kind of keeps me on task for the most part. And when I, you know, get it done, I have the joy of checking it off the list with a little pen. And sometimes I use a different pen with a different style nib and different color ink to check it off versus to, you know, to write it. So it's each, each time's a little treat, you know?

• 55:04David Pierce?

  Cause I loved this.

• 55:05Speaker 10

  Frankly, every time I've tried like some kind of digital solution, I feel like I spend more time working on that and setting up what it is than I do actually just putting it in and getting a task done. Like I tried, I tried like Notion years, like David, I, I, every time there's a, there's a chat about this stuff and it works slack, I, I snicker to myself and I don't weigh in because I, all I think is like Notion is a scam. Like I just can't get behind it.

• 55:34David Pierce?

  I mean, you're, you're right and you're wrong. I, I fully understand that. What kind of notebook do you have?

• 55:39Speaker 10

  So I've alternated. Oh yeah. And this is an important thing. Yeah. Have notebooks are pretty cheap and I think it's fun to get like ones of different styles. Like I've used like this like basic black one that my wife got me, I think off Amazon like years ago. And it looks like a whole lot like Moleskine or that kind of style. But you know, you can pick ones that have like different like rulings, like different like line spacing or dots instead of like a dot grid instead of lines. Or I've used one that had, it was really a sketchbook. I think my wife wasn't happy with me that I kind of stole her sketchpad because it was kind of fancy. But I liked having for a period of time, no lines at all. It was kind of like, oh, I can write big, I can write small. And some pens that have like a broad nib, for example, force you to write

• 56:23Speaker 10

  bigger and that, that can be kind of, kind of fun or adventurous. But I've kind of settled on like a Rhodia notepad that's spiral bound and the spiral is on the top, which is kind of nice because you can like tear these sheets out, throw them away when you're done with them or, you know, kind of. Make it, keep it nice and tidy if you really muck up a sheet. And then it's a, it's a good quality paper, but you don't have to like spend a lot on a notebook. I mean, only if you really want to.

• 56:48David Pierce?

  I do, I'm a big believer in the, the top spiral bound ones. Cause you can like, you don't run into the crease when you're trying to write on the left side. It lays flat, it's, that is the way, if, if it's just gonna live on your desk.

• 56:59Speaker 10

  Exactly. And if I'm, I'm, I'm a righty, but if anyone's a lefty, that's also good.

• 57:03David Pierce?

  Does your notebook go everywhere with you? Or does it like live on your desk and, and you go to it when you need it?

• 57:09Speaker 10

  Uh, it usually lives on my desk. I don't go to many places sadly.

• 57:14David Pierce?

  I know that feeling.

• 57:14Speaker 10

  Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm remote, but I have gone to our, our New York office, like a bunch of handful of times. And yeah, every time I've gone, I've brought my notebook with me. Sometimes I'll leave the bag, but you know, hey, it's all well intentioned, right? Like we're, we're, we're just, we're just trying here.

• 57:31David Pierce?

  Absolutely. I'm, I'm with you. So what about like calendary stuff? When you're like, I have to do something next Thursday. Where does that go?

• 57:40Speaker 10

  Yeah. I mean, that's where like, I always lean on, yeah, digital stuff. And that's really gonna be like Google Calendar, you know, uh, for work. I've, I've got my work and personal calendars, of course, separated. Personal calendars, my wife and I have a bunch of shared ones that are like, here's our events. Here's our like, you know, works related stuff or hustles or whatever. That maybe come up from time to time. So they're all color coded and like family functions, stuff like that, you know? So when it comes to like scheduling in advance for that. And then what I do for my personal like errands? I, I, I just use like a Google Keep to do list sometimes. Like if I'm, just cause I, I think I started using Google Keep like years ago when I had a Pixel. It's cause it was there and it's clean and simple enough to make a little checklist and.

• 58:24David Pierce?

  It is the perfect, if you just want like a notes app you use every once in a while. Google Keep is perfect.

• 58:29Speaker 10

  Exactly. And it's like the perfect kind of thing to not care about. Because it's just like, pull it up, make some checkboxes. It's like, this is the kind of thing I'm like, it's a Saturday and I've got a bunch of chores to get done. And I want some kind of like, I, I just wanna write this stuff down fast. Like without like, again, going to my desk and like writing stuff down by hand. Like that'd be nice, but I don't, I just don't need to on like a, a busy Saturday. So it's like, all right, it's all there. And then check it off, check it off, check it off. I'm done. You know, like maybe I can put it depending on, I used to like change the color of it. And I think I stopped caring about that too.

• 59:01David Pierce?

  Okay, so for the, that sounds very much like you think about it the same way you think about the physical notebook, just kind of a digital version of like, it has pages you can tear off as you need to, everything is kind of transitory that way.

• 59:15Speaker 10

  Yeah, basically, and I try not to get too attached to it. I mean, like, the amount of times, like, I go to write and like, on my actual notebook, and like, a pen doesn't want to start because I, oh, I haven't used that one in a while, like, oh, screw it, just move on to the next one. Or like, I'm just like, so that each, each page sometimes is like, filled with like, scribbles of me getting a pen to start. And, you know, sometimes it's like, whatever, it's ugly, who cares, it's fleeting, like, it's just, just kind of be in the moment, get your stuff done for the day, and move on. Because like, the greater tasks are gonna be like, probably in like, your calendar appointments, or for us with work, if it's airtable, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you're, it's what you're getting assigned, and it's like, well, it's there for like, me to, but I need to dive

• 59:58Speaker 10

  into like, the micro tasks for, for just today. Like, what do I start on right now? What do I need to do? How do I make this mechanical? So many times, like, we jump, I jump into like, a post, and I think, like, I tell myself, make it mechanical. If I don't know where to start writing, let me start filling in like, the less exciting, less not creatively demanding things, that just make it, I'm just going through the motions to get those gears moving. And when those gears are moving, it's like, okay, now I can kind of take off and run. So I start walking, basically, with every little step.

• 1:00:29David Pierce?

  That's great. Make it mechanical is a pretty good, like, sticky note to put on your computer monitor every day. I like that a lot.

• 1:00:36Speaker 10

  Thanks.

• 1:00:37David Pierce?

  Anything you would add to your system, if you, if you could, what do you feel like is missing? Or do you feel like it works?

• 1:00:42Speaker 10

  I would add more pens. I will always be buying more pens.

• 1:00:45David Pierce?

  Love it.

• 1:00:46Speaker 10

  A better handwriting. But no, I don't really know, but maybe like, if, for some other like, personal projects that really are kind of more multi-layered, like a photo project that I'm, that I kind of am ideating on, or whatever, likes, I don't know, maybe, maybe I could see myself trying again with something that's like, a little bit more involved. Again, not Notion, sorry, been there, tried it, nope. But no, I don't, I don't know, I just, I guess I just, I just try to keep things really simple.

• 1:01:14David Pierce?

  Fair enough. I like it. All right, Antonio, thank you for doing this. Appreciate it.

• 1:01:18Speaker 10

  No problem. Thanks, David.

• 1:01:20David Pierce?

  Up next, and last, but certainly not least, reviews editor Barbara Krasnoff. Barbara, welcome to the show.

• 1:01:26Speaker 11

  Thank you.

• 1:01:27David Pierce?

  So tell me about your productivity system.

• 1:01:29Speaker 11

  Oh, it all depends on what I'm doing that week or what I'm using that week because I've used a whole lot of things. Right now, my main productivity app is Notion. I use it to track most of the things I do. I basically take a page. I say it's my tasks for this day or this week, and there's a list of everything that needs follow up. Sometimes I use a checkbox to do lists. Sometimes I just type things out. Sometimes there are links to the Slack messages that inspire them. Sometimes I've got due dates, sometimes I don't. If anyone else looked at it, they wouldn't see it as an organizational system. They'd see it as

• 1:02:07Speaker 11

  a mass of stuff. But it works for me. I did try to be more organized with Notion. I tried building a Notion database because if you do that, then you can right click on a Slack entry and share directly with Notion without having to do the cut and paste thing. And I tried that for about two weeks and it did not work for me. A, it was much too formal. In fact, that's it. It was much too formal. I just couldn't deal with that.

• 1:02:36David Pierce?

  I had the exact same experience. It ends up being, it felt so fiddly to me to be inside of this database thing that I ended up, I went back to the same thing you did of just like, I'm just going to write down a bunch of stuff and figure it out from there.

• 1:02:49Speaker 11

  Absolutely. Now, if there's something that I'm really afraid I'll miss, like a task that's due at a certain date, then I'll use Google Tasks. And the reason I use that is because I'm always checking my calendar because I'm always missing meetings. So I'm always checking the calendar and the tasks come right up on the calendar. I mostly don't give them dates, I mean, times. I just give them a date because then you have this big colored bar across the top of each date and I can use that to, to give myself a sort of poke in the ass.

• 1:03:25David Pierce?

  So Notion is kind of the like, scratch pad for your life, but then if it's like, this thing has to get done, or else the world falls apart. It goes into your calendar in some

• 1:03:35Speaker 11

  It goes into my calendar, yeah. And then of course, there's Airtable because we've got to use Airtable.

• 1:03:40David Pierce?

  Do you like Airtable? We've heard some mixed things about Airtable from folks so far.

• 1:03:45Speaker 11

  You know, the funny thing is, I, first I liked it because it was fun to play with. Then I didn't like it because it's one more thing to check. But now that I'm starting to pay more attention to when something that I edit has to appear, and so I have to look at the calendars that Alex Cranz and some other people have created, now I'm finding it useful again. So I keep going back and forth. So on the whole, I like Airtable. I do have some problems with it. I think if I spent about another two weeks really, really learning it, I'd like it even better.

• 1:04:20David Pierce?

  I think that's probably right, which is the thing that drives me crazy about Airtable, which is, like, so many of these tools, including Notion, actually, it is so incredibly powerful, and I don't care about most of it. And as a result, it ends up being kind of fussy and slow in some ways. Every time I go back to Notion, I end up like, running away towards some other simpler app, but then it can't do all the things that Notion does, so I go back to Notion. And I feel like Airtable is the same way, where it's like, if you leave, you can't do stuff, but if you come back, it's too much stuff. And this is like, the productivity app nightmare that you and I have signed ourselves up for.

• 1:04:56Speaker 11

  It really is. And the funny thing is, with Notion, I'm actually starting to like it more. I left it for a little while because I felt it was a little bit too fussy. There was too much you could do with it, and it was getting Evernote syndrome, you know, where there was just too much stuff there. But then I started using it back, and now I'm actually trying to write, use it to write a novel. So it's...

• 1:05:16David Pierce?

  Is it working well for that?

• 1:05:17Speaker 11

  Yes, it is, because I have, I have trouble. I'm a short story writer mostly, and I'm trying to write a novel, and I need separate chapters. I was able to separate them in Notion, where I wasn't able to really do it in, in a couple of other things I tried. So we'll see what happens with that.

• 1:05:33David Pierce?

  That's cool. What about outside of work? Do you have the same kind of organizational system for your non-work life that you do for your work life? Or do you have a totally separate way of thinking?

• 1:05:43Speaker 11

  I've totally said, well, except for the fact that I'm now using Notion, trying Notion with writing. But for personal to-dos, I use Tic-Tac.

• 1:05:51Speaker 11

  I've been using that for a long time. Unfortunately, I'm also, I also tend to ignore it sometimes, so I'm I I'm starting to actually go back, use the same Google Tasks format that I used with um my work stuff because I have a different calendar for personal. But you know, it sort of waves at me and says, hi, you got to do this by this time, which Tic Tic really doesn't. And then I used to use Evernote, but it got too large and then it got too expensive, way too expensive.

• 1:06:29David Pierce?

  Agreed and agreed.

• 1:06:30Speaker 11

  For what I used it for, which was fairly simple stuff. So I recently left Evernote in favor of Upnote, which is one of the lesser known ones. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed because it's also very small. So who knows it'll be around in five years. But it pulled in my Evernote stuff without much trouble. And it looks a little bit like a simpler version of Evernote. I like it. It's just a day by day. You can make to do notes or you can um write whole essays. And it's it's looks, it looks a little bit like Evernote.

• 1:07:06David Pierce?

  I was gonna say, it's like if if Evernote were much better designed and didn't have 15 years of like cruft attached to it. I feel like that's what Upnote looks like.

• 1:07:14Speaker 11

  Exactly.

• 1:07:15David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 11

  Exactly. And um they they're responsive. I had a little trouble with my um getting my Evernote stuff over. And I sent them a note and figured I'd hear from them in about two weeks. And I heard from them in a few hours. So it was great.

• 1:07:29David Pierce?

  That is really great. Any other apps you've tried recently that you really like? You're the, you're probably the person on staff who tests as many of these as I do. I just do it because I'm a lunatic. You do it because you like to help people on the internet. Anything else you've tried recently that you like?

• 1:07:43Speaker 11

  Not recently, no. Um, I mean, there are, there are several. I should have brought up my article because I can never remember the names of these things. There are several that are sort of on the Upnote level that are okay and that I was trying. And so let's See, I use Keep occasionally, but that's only for the the odd note here and there. Joplin was not bad.

• 1:08:08David Pierce?

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:08:09Speaker 11

  That that that's really interesting because it uses Markdown. And my problem with it was it depends on Markdown a little bit too much. And if that doesn't bother you, it's really nice and simple. And, you know, there is a very decent free version available.

• 1:08:27David Pierce?

  That's a good one. I have not tried that one, but I have heard a few people who swear by Joplin.

• 1:08:31Speaker 11

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31David Pierce?

  As a as a tool for collecting all your stuff.

• 1:08:34Speaker 11

  And a lot of people swear by Obsidian as well. And that was what I almost went to Obsidian. It was between that and Upnote. And I ended up with Upnote. I also use a notebook. I mean, I actually write.

• 1:08:49David Pierce?

  What a concept.

• 1:08:50Speaker 11

  You know, in a real notebook. So there's that as well. I always carry something like that around with me because, you know, sometimes you just have to grab something and write down a very quick note. I have not found it as easy to, you know, grab my phone and talk into it. Sometimes I do, but not all the time.

• 1:09:10David Pierce?

  This all makes a lot of sense to me. It just sounds like a lot of things. That's my my only my only immediate reaction is like, this strikes me as a lot of places just to check for stuff. And especially like, you know, the the to do lists. As soon as you said, I also use Tic Tic, I was like, do you remember to check Tic Tic? And you said you don't. But so do you ever feel like you you want to consolidate everything into fewer places? Or does the system you have work for you?

• 1:09:37Speaker 11

  I I should probably consolidate a little bit. My biggest problem is with the to do list, with the Tic Tic versus Google Tasks. And I sometimes think I need to go to Tic Tic, look at all the stuff that's like months old that I haven't done.

• 1:09:53David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 1:09:54Speaker 11

  You know, and go through that and get rid of it. I'm so used to using it. Then sometimes I think I shouldn't be using Google Tasks. I should be just using Tic Tic better. But those are the only two, because everything else, like Notion, I use for almost everything else fairly. I like playing with the other stuff. But I always, I usually tend to come back to that. And the only other thing I rarely use is writing in a notebook. And that's just something I carry around with me. And then if any, if there's anything in there that I need permanently, then I move it over.

• 1:10:29David Pierce?

  Fair enough. Yeah, again, I, I keep trying to quit Notion and I keep coming back to Notion. So I, I feel.

• 1:10:35Speaker 11

  I know. And by the way, if you find anything that you think I should be trying or playing with or adding to my list of note-taking apps, please, please tell me because I'm always playing with new ones.

• 1:10:46David Pierce?

  I will, I'll keep you posted for sure. All right, Barbara, thank you so much.

• 1:10:49Speaker 11

  Thank you. This was a lot of fun.

• 1:10:51David Pierce?

  Well, that was fascinating. There are some things in there I'm definitely going to steal immediately, like Jay's shared doc of stuff to talk about with his partner and Victoria's wall calendar. I also think the idea of just like writing all your stuff down, no matter what, as a to-do list is great. Also, Cara is definitely right. Everyone should just take more notes on everything all the time. But before I make anything work better, in the spirit of sharing and openness, here's how my system currently works. I've tried everything. Like I, I actually feel fair saying that. I've tried every app that there is to try. I've tried a lot of systems and I've settled on this thing that you hear a lot called time blocking.

• 1:11:33David Pierce?

  And basically the idea is at the beginning of every day or the night before, or whenever you want to do it, you sit down and you go through your calendar and you give every minute a job, right? So things like projects you have to get done. You don't just put them on a list, you put them on your calendar at a time. Because the theory is if you don't give things a time to get done, they won't get done. And so I, for a long time, would have things like take a shower and eat breakfast as calendar events. And then that started to seem bananas. So now it's just an hour of like, get ready in the morning on my calendar every day. But I put. Sit and watch movies on my calendar. Like downtime is a thing I schedule now because the idea is if you put everything in your calendar

• 1:12:16David Pierce?

  in a way that works and makes sense, you can trust that when you say downtime, you can do downtime. And that has actually been really meaningful for me. The app I use most is an app called Note Plan. It's mostly on Apple devices, but there's a web app now that works pretty well, too. And its thing is it's basically a combination of calendar, notes, and to-do list app. And I wouldn't say it's amazing at any of those things, but it does all of them serviceably well, and I love that. So I can open the app and it shows me all my calendar events in the right sidebar for the day and all of my reminders. I mostly use Apple reminders now because I use an iPhone and it's just easy to use Siri to dump stuff into reminders. And then it shows up in that sidebar in Note Plan.

• 1:13:01David Pierce?

  And so every morning I'll sit down, I'll look at my calendar events, I'll look at my to-do list, and I will basically write a bulleted list of everything in order that I plan to do that day. And then the goal, if all goes right, is just to plow through that every single day. Something about writing it all down and sort of seeing it in one place and also knowing, like, what do I need to do next? Is a question I can answer just by opening an app is very handy. I would say I switch away from Note Plan like once every three weeks. I've tried Notion, I've tried Obsidian. I used Obsidian for a long time, actually. I think that app is very good. I go to Evernote periodically. I tried Rome. I really like workflow-y because my brain just kind of thinks in bullets and outlines, and that worked for me really well.

• 1:13:45David Pierce?

  I've tried all of the apps that there are for doing this kind of thing. And Note Plan, because it's that combo of calendar, reminders, and notes all in one place, has just worked for me. I do live out of my calendar. I am very much the kind of person that if I don't put something on the calendar, it's not going to happen. I just don't trust my brain and I trust my calendar. So I don't even think, right? Like that lingering sense of like, oh, did I schedule that thing? What was I supposed to be doing today? I don't have that because I just assume it's all in my calendar. I miss things occasionally because I forget to schedule them, but I trust my calendar a lot. I use an app called Fantastical, which I think is wonderful. And again, has reminders integration, so I can see my tasks in there, too.

• 1:14:30David Pierce?

  I can schedule stuff. Google Calendar works fine. I think the Outlook calendar is kind of hideous, but Google Calendar is solid. It all works fine. I don't have particular religion when it comes to calendar apps, but I like Fantastical a lot. Like I said, I use Apple reminders. I've switched between all the to-do lists. I think Todoist is great. I think Tic-Tac, which a bunch of my colleagues have mentioned, is also great. But for me, just being able to like fire up Siri, say, "Remind me to take out the trash at 9:00 PM tomorrow." But just being able to fire up Siri, say, "Remind me to take out the trash at 9:00 PM tomorrow," and have it appear in the rest of my system is amazing. The other part of my system, I would say, is what I use for bigger

• 1:15:14David Pierce?

  projects, like stories I'm working on, or Vergecast episodes, or bigger things, especially things with due dates and deadlines. I have used literally every app that exists to do this kind of thing. I've used Notion, where I built a really beautiful database and Kanban board that has everything just right. I've used what basically you could just call like a big, long list of stuff. There's a productivity blog that I read a long time ago that says one thing a lot of CEOs do is just have a long-ass list. So I've tried the long-ass list. Right now, I'm using an app called Capacities that I think is pretty clever. It has some neat organizational tools, but it might be too complicated. I might end up back at Notion before I get frustrated with it and switch to something else. Again, the

• 1:15:59David Pierce?

  note plan thing is pretty settled for me, but this idea of like, how do I manage all of the different sorts of things that I need to get done in one way, shape, or form that's bigger than just like a task I can write on one line, I have not solved. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it because I think when I get it right, somehow, everything will become more pleasant and doable in my life. Probably not, but it's worth a try. All of this is to say, I think the big thing I've learned from this is that I switched too much and this anarchy is bad. All of my information is in lots of places. I don't necessarily know how to use each of these apps to their fullest extent, which is a thing I talked about a lot with Laura May Martin. The idea of like really understanding

• 1:16:43David Pierce?

  the settings and being able to make the most of the app. I don't have any of that and I gotta work on that. And to that point, one thing that I'm learning, both from talking to Laura last week and talking to all my colleagues here, is that simplicity and consolidation actually go a really long way. Our digital lives by nature kind of tend to spiral, right? We're on so many platforms, we're in so many apps, we do so many different kinds of things all day and we're interacting with these endless feeds full of stuff that it just feels like the entropy of it all feels inevitable. So I think picking a place or a couple of places that are your places feels really important. And I think that actually might be more important than what those places are, just knowing that there are a couple

• 1:17:26David Pierce?

  of them. Whether it's telling people that email and text is better than Slack for you, or throwing your entire life, no matter what it is, into a to-do list, or just being like, I am a person who uses Google Docs for everything. I think less is more, even if the tools aren't perfect and actually require a little more busy work. You know that phrase, "a single source of truth"? I think having that for your digital life might actually be more important and more useful than building these perfect, beautiful, interlocking systems that I've been trying to build myself for way too many years at this point. Anyway, lots to think about, lots of good ideas. I am probably gonna go blow up my entire productivity system because that is what I tend to do when things like

• 1:18:09David Pierce?

  this happen. And we have one more episode actually coming up in this series, which I suspect will have some insight into this as well. We're gonna talk about one of the OG, all-time most popular productivity apps.

• 1:18:23David Pierce?

  And kind of how the world changed around it. But for now, that's it for The Vergecast today. Thank you to everybody who came on the show and did this with me. And thank you, as always, for listening. If you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or awesome productivity systems you want to ruin my life by introducing me to, you can always email us, [email protected]. Keep calling the hotline, 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you. The feedback to this series so far has been really fun. I worry sometimes that I'm like the only person who thinks too much about productivity and how to manage your life digitally. So it's been really nice to hear from all the people who have enjoyed this as much as I have. Thank you to everybody who's reached out. This show is produced by Andrew Moreno, Liam James, and Will Poor, and this episode was edited by Xander Adams. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

• 1:19:08David Pierce?

  We'll be back on Tuesday and Friday with our regularly scheduled programming. Everybody's back. We're going to have tons of fun stuff, and we actually have a couple of really great things coming up this week. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

• 1:19:28Speaker 12

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