How To Manage Your Files And Notes

This week’s question is about once you have collected your ideas, tasks and commitments how do you know where to put those collected items?   You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level Your Digital Life 3.0 Online Carl’s Time Sector System Blog Post The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Script Episode 152 Hello and welcome to episode 152 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. One of the fundamental parts of the whole COD system (that’s Collect, Organise and Do) is the collection part. After all, if you are not collecting the stuff that gets thrown at you each day, you get nothing into your system and you will continue to rely on your brain to remember things and we all know—well, I hope you do—that your brain is a terrible place to try and remember everything.  But, if you are throwing everything into your inboxes, how do you manage those inputs and decide where everything goes? That’s the question I am answering this week. Now before we get to the question and answer, I just want to let you know that I have added the areas of focus sample and workbook to the Time Sector course now. So, you have a new video lesson explaining why your areas of focus are important, and you also have a downloadable workbook to help you set these up in your notes app.  If you are already enrolled in the course, you can find these new resources in the final section of the course, and if you have not enrolled in the TIme Sector Course… Err why not? (Hahaha)—seriously, if you want a simple, easy to maintain time management system that is built for the way we work today, then the Time Sector System is for you. And at only $49.99, it’s incredible value for something that will change your life and put you back in control of your time. You can get yourself enrolled by clicking on the links in the show notes. Okay, on with the show, which means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Jörg. Jörg asks: Hi Carl, two cornerstones of your productivity system are a note app and cloud storage. When using Evernote as a notes app, how do you distinguish which material goes in which channel and where to place your created files? Hi Jörg, thank you for your question.  I think the best way to start with this is to run through where things should go in general.  Events, appointments and anything where you need to be and with someone at a specific time and a specific place should go on your calendar. So these are your meetings, appointments and time blocks for you to do some focused work—appointments with yourself so you are not disturbed.  Tasks—that’s things you need to do should go into your task manager. These could be your routines like take the garbage out, do your expenses etc. Or project tasks such as work on a presentation or call Phil about the soundtrack to a new marketing campaign.  Then we have your notes app and here is where you keep your project notes, ideas, links to reference materials and anything that you need to quickly access in order to do your work.  Finally, we have your cloud storage. This is where you put your files such as PowerPoint or Keynote presentations or Word documents, Photoshop and Illustrator files etc.  Now the great thing about using cloud storage is you can generate links directly to the files you need which can be put in your project notes so you can access the right files when you need them.  Why is this important? What we are trying to avoid is having project fi