Tag Archive for: drafts

Anatomy of an Action Item

I have written before about the hierarchy of tasks (i.e., action items) in OmniFocus. In this post, I will zoom in on the base unit of productivity, an action item, and identify the characteristics every action item should have.

I like using OmniFocus and calling tasks “action items.” Regardless of the program you use, and whatever you call the things you need to do, you should think about how they are composed. As of March 2021, I think these are the essential parts of an action item. When I clear to neutral every day, I make sure each action item that goes into my system has been reviewed for each of the following characteristics.

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Sunday Chores

A stylized 3D illustration of a cozy living room in warm beige tones. Two figures made of paper, an adult and a child, are tidying up the room. The adult is standing and cleaning a coffee table with a cloth, while the child is kneeling on the floor, picking up paper stars. The room is filled with paper furniture and decor, including a sofa, shelves, plants, and a lamp, creating a serene and orderly scene.

Maybe everything old is new again, or perhaps I am becoming an old man, but I think chores get a bad rap. A few years ago, I started building myself a list of weekly chores, and I believe it has been a huge success! I hope you think about doing the same for yourself by the end of this post.

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Letter of Recommendation Automation

Octobers are busy for me. Not only are there a ton of fall family adventures, but several annual school projects are active in the time of pumpkin-flavored beers as well.

Additionally, I get inundated with requests from students for letters of recommendation.

This post has resources to help you automate tedious (but important) tasks; so you can focus on what matters and what you have to do.

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Using Drafts for Lesson Planning

As I said before, Drafts is a deceptively simple but absurdly powerful app. Because of this, it is a slow burn. Even as a daily user and advocate for Drafts I did not really unlock the true power of the app until this past summer.

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Creating YouTube Timestamps

A great script makes your video easy to understand and produce. It’s also a great start to making your video easy to consume.

However, if you are publishing to YouTube, adding timestamps to your video description will add an extra level of structure to your video that makes it’s content extremely accessible.

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