Leo, what systems do you use to organize and prioritize your work?

[Pineal]

I am trying to understand how you organized your habits, projects, and daily work during your early years compared with how you operate now.

Aside from your commonplace book and the Life Purpose Course, what external systems do you actually use? For example:

Calendar or fixed schedule

Daily task lists

Habit tracking

Journaling

Project-management systems

Systems for prioritizing competing goals

How many separate systems do you use, and which ones have remained useful over time?

After reading a lot of Metarationality and Meaningness, I think I understand why an overly rigid system cannot fully handle the nebulosity of real life, but I may be misunderstanding that. How do you balance structure with flexibility? When several valuable tasks compete for your attention, how do you decide what deserves your time that day?

I recently started using Obsidian for daily notes and journaling, but I am beginning to wonder whether I am complicating everything. Would a basic list and calendar be enough? What does your actual daily process look like?

I am also curious whether you use any repeatable process for becoming highly skilled at difficult things, such as computer programming. You have mentioned the brute-force method before. How does that method fit into your daily schedule without crowding out everything else?

I could really use some practical suggestions. Also, when do you expect the bootstrapping video to be released? @Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

My work is not so complicated that it needs much infrastructure.

I keep most of my notes in Scrivner these days, where I do all of my writing for books, blogs, videos, courses, and notes.

Aside from that I don't use anything but my phone and whiteboards.

[Vido]

So no onenote? Now

[Joseph Maynor]

My work is to sleep good every night.  

[Leo Gura]

22 minutes ago, Vido said:

So no onenote? Now

I still have it but I mostly use Scrivner.

[Schizophonia]

Hi Pretty India

[Joseph Maynor]

You guys use this nerdy tech?

[sda]

On 8/19/2026 at 3:33 PM, Leo Gura said:

I still have it but I mostly use Scrivner.

Dud you pay for this app or did you get it for free?

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, sda said:

Dud you pay for this app or did you get it for free?

Paid. It's cheap for the quality.

[LordFall]

On 8/19/2026 at 3:33 PM, Leo Gura said:

I still have it but I mostly use Scrivner.

Why use that over Obsidian? 

[Joseph Maynor]

Have you guys tried Obsidian?  I tried to use that and it was not that user friendly. 

[LordFall]

34 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Have you guys tried Obsidian?  I tried to use that and it was not that user friendly. 

What didn't you like about it? I would keep it very basic to start off and not get bogged down in all the features. This is a good video on how to get the hang of it quickly. 

You should just build notes and link them together that's the main part. The next part is linking notes together so you can think of one concept and easily access other ones.

I found this video very quickly because I wrote it down in the obsidian section of my notes even though I forgot what this girl's channel was. It helps me remember notes that I wrote down months ago and forgot by just remembering one related concept to it.

I write down notes on literally everything and it helps me remember everything I watch and research. 

I don't use most of the advanced features and community plugins I find most of them redundant. I mostly use the daily note template to take notes and be able to search them by day like you see in the top right I watched another video by this same girl on March 28th and I can easily know that now and link different ideas together.

She's also a game designer and filmed a devlog that's how I first found her channel and recently she posted an Obsidian video so I can link and connect her thoughts on both topics together and I mean I do this with tens of thousands of different concepts so I find out some interesting connections all the time. 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[Joseph Maynor]

I keep my notes on whiteboards and then I take pictures of them and print them out and put them in manila folders.  I'm weird this way.

[LordFall]

47 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I keep my notes on whiteboards and then I take pictures of them and print them out and put them in manila folders.  I'm weird this way.

Sounds more like an archive for business expenses than a functional note system though. 

What's good about Obsidian is it syncs from your computer to your phone too. So say you're walking in the park and you encounter something that gives you an idea. You can write it down then and there on your phone so you don't forget and then later on comeback to it to link it to other stuff or expand on it. 

I actually just came back from a midnight walk and in the middle of the park I had two insights that linked to some conversations I've had recently on this forum that I want to think more about and will flesh out over the next few months. 

One of them I can't share because it directly links to me oversharing lol

The other one was on the importance of having a worldview that stands up to scrutiny which is the bare minimum for coherence.

I talk to a lot of people on here which seem to hold beliefs to heart that fall apart after even one round of intense scrutiny. Which tells me their beliefs are useless and a liability since life is much more ruthless than just mere rhetorical scrutiny. 

Edited 2 hours ago by LordFall

[Joseph Maynor]

@LordFall  You seem to be heavily invested in thoughts.

[LordFall]

23 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

@LordFall  You seem to be heavily invested in thoughts.

No not thoughts, more so systems of leverage. Thoughts are useless on their own. It's when organized into powerful systems that they can be leveraged into masterpieces. 

[Joseph Maynor]

2 minutes ago, LordFall said:

No not thoughts, more so systems of leverage. Thoughts are useless on their own. It's when organized into powerful systems that they can be leveraged into masterpieces. 

That is a paradox for sure.  I agree.  

[LordFall]

13 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

That is a paradox for sure.  I agree.  

That's why I like systems.

A thought is like I like women.

A concept is like women like me when I make them laugh and host cool events.

A system is like I will build creative communities around Canada and host a podcast so I can host cool events often without wasting my time and be able to turn a profit from it so I can scale it my social life pretty much infinitely. 

Edited 1 hour ago by LordFall

[Joseph Maynor]

25 minutes ago, LordFall said:

That's why I like systems.

A thought is like I like women.

A concept is like women like me when I make them laugh and host cool events.

A system is like I will build creative communities around Canada and host a podcast so I can host cool events often without wasting my time and be able to turn a profit from it so I can scale it my social life pretty much infinitely. 

Oh yeah!