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Summary
In this episode, Dalton Anderson discusses time management and shares his productivity stack. He explores the task management apps Todoist and TickTick, highlighting their features and user interfaces. Dalton also discusses different task management frameworks, including Eat the Frog, Pomodoro Technique, and day theming. He emphasizes the importance of finding a time management approach that works for you and integrating it with your calendar. Additionally, he shares his personal experience with time blocking and the Eisenhower matrix. In this conversation, Dalton Anderson discusses his approach to time management and task organization using Todoist and ClickUp. He explains how he uses the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, time blocking, and day theming to stay organized and prioritize his tasks. Dalton also compares different task management and project management apps, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. He emphasizes the importance of finding an app that excels at task management and offers the necessary features without unnecessary complexity. Dalton concludes by sharing his thoughts on subscription pricing for time management apps and the value of saving time.
Keywords
time management, task management, productivity, task management apps, Todoist, TickTick, task management frameworks, Eat the Frog, Pomodoro Technique, day theming, time blocking, Eisenhower matrix, time management, task organization, Todoist, ClickUp, Getting Things Done, GTD, time blocking, day theming, task management apps, project management apps, subscription pricing
Takeaways
Time management requires prioritization and trade-offs in different areas of life.
Todoist and TickTick are popular task management apps with similar features, but Todoist has a more polished user interface.
Combining different task management frameworks can be effective in managing tasks and projects.
Eat the Frog is a technique for tackling difficult tasks first, while Pomodoro Technique helps with focus and productivity.
Time blocking and day theming are useful for managing time and prioritizing tasks.
Integrating task management apps with your calendar can provide a comprehensive view of your schedule and tasks. Dalton uses the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, time blocking, and day theming to stay organized and prioritize tasks.
He recommends using task management apps that excel at task management and offer necessary features without unnecessary complexity.
Dalton compares different task management and project management apps, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each.
He emphasizes the importance of finding an app that fits your workflow and saves you time.
Subscription pricing for time management apps should be evaluated based on the potential time savings and value they provide.
Sound Bites
"Task management is something that people struggle with."
"Todoist has a clean, simple UI with polished features."
"Combining different task management techniques can be beneficial."
"I think if you're on like a company license, like your stuff's public, like they could see it, like your boss could see it or people on your team can see it."
"I use getting things done, the systematic approach."
"I use what is called areas to help manage my workload and keeping things segmented."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
04:20 Task Management Struggles
08:40 Comparing Todoist and TickTick
14:18 Exploring Task Management Frameworks
16:19 Eat the Frog Technique
20:20 The Eisenhower Matrix
24:01 Deep Work and Time Blocking
31:17 Day Theming for Long-Term Initiatives
33:55 Balancing Work and Personal Life
37:48 Task Management and Privacy
38:42 Using Areas for Workload Management
44:36 Keeping Inbox and Tasks at Zero
50:07 Choosing ClickUp for Project Management
53:39 The Hierarchical Approach of ClickUp
01:06:20 The Complexity of Notion
01:08:33 The Price of Asana
01:10:38 The Steep Price of Samsama
01:13:25 Summary and Conclusion
In this episode, Dalton Anderson discusses time management and shares his productivity stack. He explores the task management apps Todoist and TickTick, highlighting their features and user interfaces. Dalton also discusses different task management frameworks, including Eat the Frog, Pomodoro Technique, and day theming. He emphasizes the importance of finding a time management approach that works for you and integrating it with your calendar. Additionally, he shares his personal experience with time blocking and the Eisenhower matrix. In this conversation, Dalton Anderson discusses his approach to time management and task organization using Todoist and ClickUp. He explains how he uses the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, time blocking, and day theming to stay organized and prioritize his tasks. Dalton also compares different task management and project management apps, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. He emphasizes the importance of finding an app that excels at task management and offers the necessary features without unnecessary complexity. Dalton concludes by sharing his thoughts on subscription pricing for time management apps and the value of saving time.
Keywords
time management, task management, productivity, task management apps, Todoist, TickTick, task management frameworks, Eat the Frog, Pomodoro Technique, day theming, time blocking, Eisenhower matrix, time management, task organization, Todoist, ClickUp, Getting Things Done, GTD, time blocking, day theming, task management apps, project management apps, subscription pricing
Takeaways
Time management requires prioritization and trade-offs in different areas of life.
Todoist and TickTick are popular task management apps with similar features, but Todoist has a more polished user interface.
Combining different task management frameworks can be effective in managing tasks and projects.
Eat the Frog is a technique for tackling difficult tasks first, while Pomodoro Technique helps with focus and productivity.
Time blocking and day theming are useful for managing time and prioritizing tasks.
Integrating task management apps with your calendar can provide a comprehensive view of your schedule and tasks. Dalton uses the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, time blocking, and day theming to stay organized and prioritize tasks.
He recommends using task management apps that excel at task management and offer necessary features without unnecessary complexity.
Dalton compares different task management and project management apps, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each.
He emphasizes the importance of finding an app that fits your workflow and saves you time.
Subscription pricing for time management apps should be evaluated based on the potential time savings and value they provide.
Sound Bites
"Task management is something that people struggle with."
"Todoist has a clean, simple UI with polished features."
"Combining different task management techniques can be beneficial."
"I think if you're on like a company license, like your stuff's public, like they could see it, like your boss could see it or people on your team can see it."
"I use getting things done, the systematic approach."
"I use what is called areas to help manage my workload and keeping things segmented."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
04:20 Task Management Struggles
08:40 Comparing Todoist and TickTick
14:18 Exploring Task Management Frameworks
16:19 Eat the Frog Technique
20:20 The Eisenhower Matrix
24:01 Deep Work and Time Blocking
31:17 Day Theming for Long-Term Initiatives
33:55 Balancing Work and Personal Life
37:48 Task Management and Privacy
38:42 Using Areas for Workload Management
44:36 Keeping Inbox and Tasks at Zero
50:07 Choosing ClickUp for Project Management
53:39 The Hierarchical Approach of ClickUp
01:06:20 The Complexity of Notion
01:08:33 The Price of Asana
01:10:38 The Steep Price of Samsama
01:13:25 Summary and Conclusion
Creators & Guests
What is Venture Step?
Venture Step Podcast: Dive into the boundless journey of entrepreneurship and the richness of life with "Venture Step Podcast," where we unravel the essence of creating, innovating, and living freely. This show is your gateway to exploring the multifaceted world of entrepreneurship, not just as a career path but as a lifestyle that embraces life's full spectrum of experiences. Each episode of "Venture Step Podcast" invites you to explore new horizons, challenge conventional wisdom, and discover the unlimited potential within and around you.
Dalton Anderson (00:01.59)
Welcome to Venture Step podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Have you ever felt like you don't have enough time? I'm sure we've all been there splitting life between kids, family, partner, your girlfriend, boyfriend, hobbies, and friends, just having a social life in general, and things that you're trying to do and working on yourself like reading, exercising, or chasing that.
that next goal. All those things have a cost and the cost is you could do anything in life as long as you're willing to accept that you're not going to be the best at all things. You could pick a couple that you could really be good at. And so you could be, you could be a really good parent and really good work life, but your social life might have an hampering on it.
Or you could do vice versa. You could do, you know, really good family and social life, but your work life might not be as good as it is with other people that are more focused. So obviously people who specialize in certain areas in school are good at those areas. And so same thing applies in life. But then how do you manage all those aspects of your life? And that's something that I have been pondering.
last couple of weeks and I figured I would share my productivity stack, what I'm doing. And I also wanted to take things to the next level because I was struggling in certain areas, especially at work. And so I did a lot of research on project management tools and personal task management tools, note taking tools. And so I'm going to discuss all those tools and the tools that I picked to help manage my time.
and discuss the little caveats, but I'm really just going to be giving personal anecdotes, my experience of using the app and why I do what I'm doing and just different methodologies. I'm definitely not an expert in these methodologies because people write books about them. People, you know, they have their PhD and they write the book and they create these methodologies or whatever, and they're not anything crazy. It's pretty mainstream.
Dalton Anderson (02:24.354)
but I would just like to discuss my perspective and that might help you out. So before we dive in, I'm your host, Alton Anderson. I've got a bit of a mix of background in programming, insurance, offline. You can find me running, building my side business or lost in a good book. You can listen to the podcast and video and audio format. If that's your thing, you can find it on YouTube. If audio is your preference, you can find the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify.
course, YouTube or wherever else you get your podcasts. So as discussed today, we're going to talk about time management and I'm going to break down my to -do list app. And then I'm to talk about the task management or time management framework that I utilize and my personal approach. And I'll give some, I guess some small snippet summaries of the
methods or techniques that are used just in case you're not familiar, but I won't be going with a robust summary or something like that. You definitely, you'll get way better information online. You could talk about one methodology for a long time over an hour or something like that. If you really wanted to get down dirty with it. And then we're going to talk about the project management apps that I tried and the one that I chose and why.
And the app said, you know, obviously didn't make the cut. So I'm not going to talk about every app that I tried in the first two segments, but I'll go in a little bit more detail on the other apps that I tried at the bottom and I'll keep it conversational. Okay. So task management, task management is something that people struggle with. feel like, like, how do you, how do you manage where you are?
going, how do you manage one -off tasks? How do you understand where those tasks are coming from? Which areas of your life are those tasks supposed to be located? And just in general, having something where it's really easy when someone's talking to you at work or someone's talking to you at a coffee shop, just open up the app and assign something to yourself like really quick.
Dalton Anderson (04:51.222)
That's what I was looking for. There's, there's many offerings on the market, but I really narrowed it down to two. Is the two, to do us, which is it's like to do. And then it's like I S T all one word. And then it's tick tick. Those are the two that I really narrowed down to to do is in tick tick are like the two biggest task management apps that are are.
Todoist has been around longer, I think 20 years and has a clearer roadmap of where it's going. In my opinion, I like the UI more than TicTac. TicTac has really
launched a lot of features and is rather new to the market compared to Todoist because Todoist is like one of the oldest. And TicTac has some, you know, interesting features that forced Todoist to adapt. And Todoist had to adapt many of the features, like adapt or die, where TicTac was forcing Todoist to adopt many features that they didn't have.
And so I think that's great. I love when there's this two company competition where two companies are pushing each other. A good example would be Apple and Google and the hardware, or I guess not as much as Google. I would say Apple and Samsung in the hardware business where Samsung makes a device that's pretty good. Apple makes a device and they kind of just push back and forth and they innovate and
it makes us happy because if you're an Apple fan, Apple's getting pushed by Samsung. So you're getting better products. Samsung's getting pushed by Apple. So Samsung fans are getting better products. So overall the competition is perfect. If you want to manage your, your tasks because to do is, is getting pushed by tick tick and, now to do is is caught up and now they're pushing each other. But basically to do is, rather new. We're not sorry, sorry, not to do us.
Dalton Anderson (07:08.578)
Tic Tic is rather new. And so they launched many features like very fast and they, would say.
aren't as stable. was like, the features are there, but they're not perfect. Like they're always missing something that never seemed like fully fledged features. Whereas to do is when to do is comes out with something it's pretty top notch in its class. And I felt like to do is over time, they have stabilized their features and their offering.
but they launch features like they're constantly shipping new things, which is great. But the caveat of that is like they're, they're iterating so fast that the features that they shipped two months ago might not be fully baked. And then over time you just get a whole bunch of like half baked things where it's not complete and it's missing things or it might be a little buggy or whatever the issue is. There's this weird UI thing.
and it's not as clean.
Whereas Todoist is a little bit slower moving and the features that they do launch are
Dalton Anderson (08:29.516)
Very polished, I would say. So that's one of my key gripes is like, I think that if you're always looking for those new features and be able to provide feedback and have those features implemented into the app, which TicTac is known to do, then that's probably your choice. But if you want a clean, simple UI with potentially less features,
than your competitor, but those features are very polished and you have a uniformed look across apps of different platforms. Like my Todoist app on my Android phone, my Google pixel phone is very clean. Beautiful. The Todoist app on my Mac, my MacBook pro clean. It's almost the exact same UI and layout. The Todoist app on the windows.
pretty much the same exact thing. Like you can't really tell. Like if I look at Mac and if I look at Windows, functionality, UI, everything, animations, all the same. If I go on the website, same thing.
Tic Tic, it seems like their apps, like their Mac app and their Windows app look different. Their Android app versus their Apple app looks different. And so you don't have this uniformed.
Dalton Anderson (10:01.436)
UI for all these different apps and it's kind of confusing why they're all different. I would appreciate if they were the same. But as far as features go, I mean, they're pretty much identical now. They both allow you to use task management formats like framework, sorry, like the Eisenhower matrix or getting things done or eat the frog or time blocking.
Like it allows you to do all those things with a template. And you can manage your schedule. Your task can become events on your calendar to enable time blocking. It pretty much does the same thing.
Dalton Anderson (10:50.366)
And if, and if not, you could, you can get an integration. They allow integrations and plugins where if maybe they have a service that you want or don't have a service that you want, but you want to keep using to do this or tick tick, then you can, you know, have this plugin app. Like if you wanted better time blocking features, you could use some Sama and some Sama would allow
very advanced time blocking and scheduling of your time, but it comes with its own separate subscription. And both of these apps, didn't say, I didn't think it was that important because it's not that much money in the first place, but both of them are free. And if you want premium, it's like five bucks or four bucks a month or something if you do it annually. So it's fairly cheap. I people spend more than that a week on coffee every day.
I know people that get Starbucks four times a week. mean, that's a lot more than four bucks a month. So I don't think many people are concerned about $4 a month. So that's why I didn't mention the price.
But I would say as feature wise, they're pretty much identical.
But as said, TicTic seems to launch things faster than Todoist. They both have recurring tasks. You can have your tasks tied to geo locations. Like if you get to work, you could have like tasks being triggered, like checking email, brew coffee, whatever. You can have a hierarchical approach to your tasks. You can have projects and you have sub projects and then you have tasks within the project or sections. Both of them have
Dalton Anderson (12:38.946)
task comments and notes. Tic -Tac uses notes, which I think is better approach than to do us as comments. But overall they're pretty much once again, identical. It's more of a preference. I prefer to do us as UI and simplicity. And I like that since I have a desktop PC, which is windows, I have a portable laptop, which is Mac.
Then I have a work computer that's windows and then my phone is Android. So I'm in on all sorts of different operating systems. So I liked that it's uniform. Like I really appreciate the simplicity and the beauty of their applications. So that's, that was why I chose to do us over Tic -Tac. I'm really a UI guy. Like you're going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. And some of these other apps at the, at
later in the episode where I was just like, man, this UI is, is brutal. You know, I have this list of like five different apps I'm going to try out. And if I open it up and the UI is just horrendous, I'm like, all right, I'll give it a try. But it seems like it's a no. It seems like a no. It seems like there's not putting a lot of thought into their product. And that's, that's how I feel like if the UI isn't
elegant and free flowing and just like beautiful. I feel like they're just not putting in the thought into their product. they're, just, there's not being thoughtful about the product they're releasing. And maybe for certain things like the UI doesn't matter. Like I guess Amazon, Amazon's a company that a lot of people are a website that I use that the UI, I mean the UI sucks, but I mean, where else am I going to get same day shipping?
and next day shipping consistently. So I don't know. Walmart's UI, I think it's better, but I don't have Walmart plus and I use my family's Amazon Prime because I'm cheap like that. Shout out to my mom. Okay. So task management framework. I think that people get a lot of, I would rephrase that.
Dalton Anderson (15:04.898)
Task management framework, I think people get caught up with.
using their framework. Like, I did my research. This is the framework for me. And this is how this is how I do things. I don't necessarily like that approach. I think you should be a little bit more free flowing on the things that you're doing and how you're doing them. So I don't feel like one methodology or technique ticks all the boxes like they're they're all good at one or two things.
They kind of build off of each other, but a lot of times I think it's best to combine them.
in certain circumstances, but I'm just going to talk about like how I manage my, my, my time with these frameworks. And then I'll show you afterwards the Todoist app. I'll share what I, what I did. basically managed, managed my tasks by combining two different techniques. I think it's like the getting things done and the
manager's systematic, another manager, the founder systematic template, and then one other template combined all into one. And that's how I manage my tasks. And I think that's pretty good. And I feel like I'm on top of my stuff and I feel like I'm getting a lot more things. I would say a lot more items done and completed off my, off my chest, my back and my shoulders feel a lot lighter. And also it allows me to really understand what's going on in my day.
Dalton Anderson (16:43.64)
Cause my calendars are all integrated. So I my work calendars integrated and my Google calendars integrated. And then my tasks that I'm putting on there with durations are integrated so I can see everything all in one place. So I know what's going on throughout the day. And it's just great. But I'll go over that after I talk about how I like to go about completing things and if I'm struggling, like what do I do? So for workouts, I like to
to use eat the frog framework. So eat the frog is basically like, and it's really one liner thing is like, you have these tasks that you're really dragging on, right? So say,
Dalton Anderson (17:30.796)
know, things that you don't want to do. Maybe lawn work, mow the grass and it's summertime and it's just hot. You don't want to do it or put together your travel itinerary that, you know, it's going to be super time consuming and you would rather watch Netflix. So instead of
saving it for last or doing it in the middle, eat the frog basically is you do the thing that you don't want to do first. You get it out of the way. And so I like to do that with really difficult tasks. Sorry. I'm still a bit sick. Sorry. I a cough. I like to use eat the frog for tasks that I just I'm dreading. Like a good example is, is that when I have a workout that I know is going to be super difficult, like sprint work,
or a long run with when my legs are sore or something like that. I try to do that first thing in the morning. If I don't get it done. And I think that overall the approach is great for exercising because you can make all sorts of excuses. I'm tired. I'm working late tonight and then I still have to get my food and I don't have to clean the dishes afterwards or
I have to take all the trash. You can make all sorts of excuses, but if you eat the frog for your workout right in the morning, there it is, it's done. It's done. You don't have to worry about it. Nothing comes up. And so I think for working out, I like to use eat the frog and I just do it right away. And for other tasks like related to work, things that I have to do related to like reporting or reviewing financial documents.
that is going to be very time consuming. try to do that right away. It might not be the most efficient way to do it because if you think about how your
Dalton Anderson (19:34.39)
sleep schedule is if you're an early bird or a night owl, your brain activity is better at certain certain tasks segmentation throughout the day. So if you're an early bird like myself, it's better. I mean, this is a stereotype like this. I'm stereotyping early birds, but from the research and who knows if any of this stuff is legitimate. I mean, this is people what they tell us. Who knows?
But you're supposed to really do analytical tasks. Like first thing in the morning, that's when you're highest energy. And then at the middle of the day, you're supposed to do like collaborative work. And then at the end of the day, at the end of your day, you're supposed to do administrative work. So you're doing like emails or responding to people via Teams or just setting up your tasks for the next day, planning for your next day, just admin work that's low power.
low effort, you just got to get it done. You want to do your high power stuff, brain, brain requirement stuff in the morning when you're sharp. And for night owls, it's the other way around where you're supposed to do admin stuff when you're tired, your brains on all the way to the admin stuff, do collaborative stuff in the, in the afternoon. And then you're supposed to do these analytical tasks or deep work in the evening. Okay.
So let's transition back over to my task management or time management framework. So for resource allocation for product project planning, I use the Eisenhower matrix. So I have many projects and I decide which ones we need to work on. So I have a whole list of them, maybe like 20. And then I kind of just slot them in like where I think that they should land. Okay. I think this is, this is urgent or not urgent or, you know, I should delegate this or.
or whatever. And so it makes it very clear on like what, what should be done or not done. what needs to get done by me or it can give it done by someone else. What is something that's important, but we're not responsible for and just kind of prioritizing like who does what and what do I do and what do we not work on or what's important, but can't be worked on now. What's urgent, what's critical, but not urgent or
Dalton Anderson (21:59.576)
There's just a whole bunch of different, different, different ways of going about it. Okay. So tasks that I find that I'm dragging on, which is, you know, just different things like those financial reviewing of the documents where I have to like cross reference other things and it's just time consuming. I wouldn't say I'm dragging on it all the time, but there's times where things come up and I get distracted with other, other things that come up at work. And then before you know it,
I haven't worked on this, you review and I need to get the review out and sign off on it. So I like to do for these things, like if I'm dragging on something and this is the only example I can think of off top of my head, but I like to use eat the frog, which is like you do it first, first then, and then I use the Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro technique is you set a time for yourself and
It really depends on like what you're doing and how comfortable you are sitting still for a long time working on one task.
but basically you set a timer and say it's 25 minutes. And so you would do 25 minutes straight. Your phone, lot of, a lot of times there's an app that you can download on your phone or it locks your phone. And so you can't really use your phone. It just has a timer going and it will go off and you could use your phone for a couple of minutes and then it's locked again. And so you do 25 minutes on hard work. You're completely locked in, focused on your task.
And then after 25 minutes, the timer goes off. You have a two minute break or something like that. Three minute break. Do your, do your thing. Get water, whatever. Go on your phone. Just take a break, relax, walk around and then come back. do another 25 minutes and then you keep repeating that for like four sets. And then after that you get a longer break, maybe 20 minutes, 15 minutes, and then you keep repeating that task.
Dalton Anderson (24:01.784)
until it's completed. That's a good way to get things done. I do longer segments. Like I would do like 45 minutes and then three minute break. I think that's better. 25 minutes is a bit short in my opinion. But everyone's got their own little flow. Some people might be like, well after 30 minutes, you're really not getting that much work done and you're
you're not as focused. And so it's, it's more optimal to do 25 minutes or 30 minutes. All I'll say to that is think about yourself and how you work and what works for you instead of following everything that the internet says is what I would say is like, I would try it out, see how it works for you. If it doesn't work for you, increase the time, decrease the time.
Do whatever you want. mean, there are these frameworks are more like ideas on how to manage your time, but it's not a set rule. So there's no set rules. You could do whatever you want. Okay. So for tasks to complete tasks that require deep work and deep work is like this analytical stuff that I'm talking about or like coding or
Mm.
coding or creating or research.
Dalton Anderson (25:28.908)
those require deep work. Those tasks require deep work. And the issue with that is if people are putting meetings on your calendar or if you're getting called in to do ad hoc calls with different people to groups and you're needed for whatever reason or your team needs you or someone else on someone else's team needs you or there's something comes up and you're needed.
people throw meetings on your calendar. And this is like this whole switching costs of like, okay, you go to one meeting to another meeting, and then you have say a two hour block that's supposed to be free. So you're like, I'll get my work done. And then after that, someone gives you a call and that calls 45 minutes and then, and then 10 minutes later, someone else calls you. And then before you know it, you only had like 45 minutes of time to work on what you're supposed to, but
of those 45 minutes, they are broken up in like 15 minutes slots. And so you don't really get much work done in those 15 minutes because like you're trying to get water, you're trying to get food, you're trying to figure out what you need to do for these other tasks that you just got randomly pulled into. You're documenting what you talked about and at the end of the day you didn't get much work done. And that's, that was what was happening to me.
recently, would say last, I would say maybe last month, three weeks. And that's where I really was diving deep into trying to figure out a better way to manage my time. And so I had already utilized those other frameworks or techniques before, but I was pretty new to time blocking and it's a new issue as I am in an elevated elevated position where
responsible for many areas and I'm required to give input and advice on different things, which is, which is a good problem to have. But at the same time I was missing out on contributing individually on my projects that I needed to complete. And the solution might be for other people, I'll just work late consistently.
Dalton Anderson (27:52.994)
But as said earlier, we have all these different areas in our life that we're trying to compete in. I'm not competing with other people, but what I mean is like you want to compete and you want to be there and you want to be active and to do that, you need time and time is definitely a finite resource. And at the moment we can't get more time. So that's not a solution is to
Work more. I already work enough. So I don't want to do that. That was something I was doing where I was consistently working later, later than I normally do to contribute on my projects. But the issue there is then I start lacking in my workouts or then I start lacking in my social life. And then those things like those balances make it so you can contribute.
at a
Dalton Anderson (29:00.15)
a more meaningful contribution when you're recharged or you refresh or you have different perspective and you are interacting with different people to get different ideas and different approaches on life and things and your work. And so those outside interactions fold into your work. And if you're not having those outside interactions,
then you don't contribute as much. It's simple as that.
So I started to do time blocking and I'm pretty new to time blocking. So I've done it for two weeks, a week and a half. I would say week, week and a half. Yeah, we can have, so I did it for a week and a half. And that was one of the main reasons why I was looking at to do is and tick tick was because you can integrate your Google calendar into the app. And then if you sync your Google calendar with your outlook calendar or your Google calendar with work, then
And all you have to do is do a subscribe. You subscribe to the calendar. And so if you go in the Outlook app and you go to old view, you go to your settings, you go to calendar, and then you go to like share. There's a thing for like shared calendar. And then you do by URL, copy the URL, go to your Google calendar, go to your settings and go to calendars. And then there should be something like say like subscribe to calendar.
And then you say, subscribe by URL, you copy and paste that URL and then you're good to go. And they're both integrated. So it's a, it's what's called a one way sync. And so those calendars are one way sync. So you can't make any changes on your work calendar on your Google calendar and your Google account in your, your work calendar can't make any changes to your Google calendar. They don't necessarily know what events are on there. I would say like, well, you know, like you could see on your outlook.
Dalton Anderson (31:03.276)
when you're at work, my work uses Outlook. So your Microsoft calendar, you can see all your events and what they are and you click on them, whatever, you just can't do any edits, like it's read -only basically. But people that are scheduling meetings and trying to schedule meetings over events or time blocks that you created to manage your day, those events that aren't work events, they can't see them. So they know that you're busy and you're not available, but they don't know like what you're doing.
which I guess is good or bad. I don't know how you feel about it. I don't really care that much as long as I can get some deep work in there. And I'm not trying to block out my whole day and say, well I'm only meeting 30 minutes a day as I needed to be in these meetings and contribute and make sure that we're going in the right direction for the product. But if I can get my meetings down to three to four hours a day and that would give me
well, let's just call it three. It was just three hours a day. That would give me enough time to individually contribute on my projects and, and make sure that I'm available to people. And yeah, I mean, as long as I can get done the stuff that I can get done, I think I can get done, get all that stuff done like three hours. If I got three hours of deep work a day, that would be huge, but
there's just some weeks where I'm just, wasn't getting any deep work done. So I was like, I have to, I had to figure something out because a lot of my value that I contribute is one leading the direction of like where we're going with it and systems and, and, but also I'm building systems and building programs and building automations and I'm doing all this coding and that's deep work. And if I'm constantly going in and out of meetings, I'm not getting that's any of that stuff done. So that's when time blocking came about.
And I will say that it works like it does work and it's pretty decent, I would say where you're, you get a lot of deep work done and it's, I think very beneficial. A lot of like founders or CEOs use time blocking.
Dalton Anderson (33:22.134)
And that's maybe where you've seen it before. There's time blocking and then there is. What is it time? There's time blocking and then there is one other one. And I think people get them confused time because I got confused about time blocking versus.
I can spell block, geez.
Hold on one moment time blocking.
time versus time boxing. Yeah, there it is. I know that it's supposed to start with a B, but time, time boxing is like doing an assigned task for a certain amount of time. like say that, you know, a task might be eight hours, but instead of working on that task for eight hours, you're like, okay, I'll work on it for an hour and a half today. And then after that hour and a half, I'm going to work on something else. And so time, time boxing is good.
when you have many competing tasks and you're prone to going down rabbit holes. So we're okay. Like, and that, and the time boxing thing is good for me because when I was trying to do this podcast episode, I was researching, I just different stuff, just before my episode, just so I could make sure I'm like well informed to talk about this. And I got like really caught up on like researching like different note note apps.
Dalton Anderson (34:54.232)
And I was trying them out and the ones I hadn't tried, I was like signing up and making the accounts, like downloading the apps. And like before I know I dropped like an hour and a half on just nonsense that I wasn't going to talk about in the episode. Like it wasn't related. Like I was just curious and I was looking at the time and I was like, what, what are you doing here? Let's, let's get out of here and let's go do the episode. Like what we're supposed to be doing.
Okay, so that's time blocking. And then for long term initiatives, I use day theming, which is another thing that a lot of like CEOs and founders use, especially if they're juggling like many companies, think Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk deploy day theming, but it's a little different for them because their day is like themed by like which company they're working on.
But there, know that there are founders that will theme their days to say like, okay, like on Mondays or Tuesdays, I'm working on product. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I'm working on system issues. And then Fridays I'm working on like long -term initiatives. And so your whole day, like that's all you're doing. And so your meetings are related to that day and the tasks that you're doing are related to that day. And so that's like your sole focus.
I wouldn't say like your meanings necessarily need to be related to that. But if you're like a big CEO or founder, like I'm pretty sure that they would have the same like, okay, if it's not related to this on this day, I'm not doing it because I know when Jack Dorsey or something like that or Elon is doing their day theming and they're working on SpaceX on Wednesday, if something huge comes up with Tesla on Wednesday, he'll be available, but that's not really his prime focus. And so he's working on.
SpaceX and then Thursday he might work on Tesla and then Friday might work on like.
Dalton Anderson (37:01.698)
boring company or something. That's day theming. So I use day theming for like long -term initiatives where, you know, maybe Monday through Thursday, I do my tasks and my projects that I'm working on. But then what about these like big long -term initiatives that are not necessarily not important, but they are far away. And so I don't necessarily need to work on it full -time, but
I need to keep chipping away at it. And so I'll sign some time on like a Friday or something and I'll work on something that is a long -term initiative to get that put together, but not necessarily doing a full focus, Fledged, know, Fledged switch and devoting a lot of resources to it. So that's how I manage my time. One thing I did forget to say is if you're using the Eisenhower matrix, make sure that
your stuff that you're creating is private and people can't see it. Especially when you're at a company and you're using a
product management software or tool, because I remember at a previous company, I was using a sauna and I was using the Eisenhower matrix for all these tasks that were coming into me and projects. I didn't know it at the time, but I found out later on, obviously, that the tasks that I was creating were visible to other people. And so they could see what I was doing and they could see that I was marking their tasks like not important.
like not important, not urgent, or like thought of as urgent, but definitely not important. Like all this stuff. And luckily no one found out like, or maybe they found out, but they didn't, they didn't say anything, which, which might've caused a rift potentially. No one said anything about it, but I definitely could have been funny or funny looking back. Definitely not funny in that.
Dalton Anderson (39:08.862)
in that moment. But yeah, like if you're using the Eisenhower matrix and you're telling people their tasks aren't important, make sure that they they can't see it. Or if you're telling them that it's not important, like make sure you explain why it's on porn. Elsewise, people are going to be upset and it just doesn't doesn't look good. Luckily, I didn't have to have that conversation, but if it's public, explain it.
If it's not public, that's good too. It removes a lot of the question that you might get or might not get. I think if you didn't get questions, that's worse than if you did get questions. Just an FYI, because that's something I dealt with. So your sonotas are public unless you...
I think if you're on like a company license, like your stuff's public, like they could see it, like your boss could see it or people on your team can see it. I think you can set your stuff to private, but that's just not how we were set up at our previous company. Okay. So what I do for Todoist, and I'll share my screen here. Let's see. So Todoist, I use getting things done, the systematic approach and
Dalton Anderson (40:30.392)
this full screen.
Dalton Anderson (40:34.484)
And I use what is called areas to help manage my load, my workload and keeping things segmented because I have venture step, then I have fibition. And then after that, I've got my work and then I've got my personal life and social life and all sorts of things. So if I don't have a way to segment these things, then I just I'll have a tough time.
I'll have a tough time. to do this, let's see, share. Okay. So I'm sharing my screen right here. So this is my to do us. And so one of my things I want today was quick thoughts for the podcast. And so I just put in some, some, some things about the podcast that I want to talk about. And then I sent it up to the cloud. Obviously I did it on my phone, typed it up in bed after my nap.
that I, when I got home from traveling with Labor Day weekend. And so I typed it up on my phone. It goes syncs to my website, not my website, but to the do us app website or app, whatever web app. could be a web app or you could use the app. It doesn't really matter. Semantics is point. But so I made this little task. I'm going to, I'm going to complete it cause it's done. talking about the podcast right now. And so one thing that's
That's kind cool is you could see the.
breakdown of my day. And so if you look at the calendar, you can see it's Labor Day. I've got to study Spanish to lingo, check my email. I've done that already. And these other things are tomorrow. I said Spanish to lingo because you have to do I have to do that every day. Check my email, I check that every day. But I have a meeting of a one on one meeting tomorrow morning. And then I've got some focus time scheduled for later in the afternoon.
Dalton Anderson (42:34.794)
at the end of the day, I'm going to review and plan for the next day. I've got a developer session later in that, like late, late, late in the work day, but that's my day for tomorrow. And so then when I start adding tasks in here, when I go to my work, I think I have something that's not very organized, but I have this brain dump. So I just put in my stuff, like whatever I'm thinking about, like just one off things. And at that point I will,
to assign them out where I need to put stuff. And what I would do is I would put it, if I needed to put it in a certain project, I haven't made separate projects yet for this. And she'll try now how I wanna do it. I don't wanna make it too complex to where the complexity ruins the approach of having it segmented. So right now I'm just having these three. This is something that the system made
when I took from the template, so I didn't make this inspiration section. Routines is not really part of it, but I do have, under my work, I do have other sections. So I have culture, which is things I wanna share, I wanna share with the team. So little articles or little stories that I think are valuable to share with the team to help build culture and knowledge.
review things that I need to review. if I need to review documents or I need to review some emails that I wasn't able to get to, I'll, throw it into review and then I'll deal with it later. Meetings is like maybe some meeting takeaways slash like some meeting notes. And after that I will create a to -do list and then I'll get rid of this task. Personal, I'm more willing to click into these. So personal I have
health and social, have trips, so I think I have some stuff in here. I have some recommendations, and so I need to figure out if I want to rent a car, take a helicopter for the Grand Canyon when I go to Las Vegas. And it was recommended that I eat at the Wynn Hotel for their buffet. My friend Sarah recommended it. Sarah recommended it. Japan, figure out if I want to do the Mount Fuji hike the one day or the two day.
Dalton Anderson (45:01.248)
And so basically for the Mount Fuji hike, I need to figure out if I'm going to stay on the mountain at night. And so I need a mountain lodge. And to get that, you can't order online. You have to call. And I think you need a Japanese phone number and you need to be able to, I don't think it's a requirement to speak Japanese, Japanese, but it definitely makes it a lot easier. So I made my friend Ryan call.
have his friend call to see if she can book it for us and we just pay her maybe. That would make things a lot easier. And especially cause I want a different time zone and it's 13 hour difference. So that, that would help. So we'll see how that turns out. But then I have stuff for Korea. I haven't put stuff on there, but there's just little things I need to take care of like restaurants or things that were recommended that need to write up in the itinerary.
learning. I have the study for Dolingo. A friend recommended the Money Guys podcast. What I do need to do for this is I need to start putting due dates. So if someone recommends something to me, you know, I really want to watch this. Like this was a Money Guys podcast. It was recommended by my friend Carter. I need to put a, I need to put a due date on this. And so it's due at a certain time. Like let's just call it. It's Monday right now. Let's do two weeks from now. So now it's got a due date.
So I would really prefer if everything I put in here had a due date to where I am not just putting stuff on here that's not actionable. So I want to make sure like the things I'm putting in here are actionable. And if I don't take action, there is a due date that I have to do it. And so it come up on my due to do today. And so before you know it, you'll have so much stuff that you won't remember everything, but it would just come up on your, your, your
to do for today. And then you just rip through your to do's and then you get through to the last part and you get this nice, nice animation of like enjoy your day, darling. You're you've completed your daily goal. My daily goals, five tasks and you'll get the, the to do is to zero. I like that. I try to keep my inbox to zero. So I got no emails in my inbox and I try to keep my tasks to zero. That's the goal.
Dalton Anderson (47:26.936)
And I like to end every day with nothing in my inbox and I want to have zero tasks. The dates to remember I have where I'll add critical dates. Like I have a wedding or just different things like maybe a birthday. And then this is like things I want to share with people. Venture step. have its own little thing where I'm going to, you have things I need to work on and then vice versa for vibration.
but those are kind of my projects and how I've things set up. So each of these is a project in itself. So my work is a project. And then within that project, there's these sub projects that are within this, what I would call as an area. So my area is work. then underneath work, have a, like my work, like kind of dashboard like thing, where I put a lot of my stuff.
And then I have these like sub projects that are, kind of like not related to work, but they're related like culture. Like it's not really a big deal if I miss out sharing an article that I wanted to share with the team. It's not huge. Nothing's bad. It's going to happen. And so I have it off to this side or it doesn't clutter. Same thing with personal, personal. I have a personal piece and then I have these other like side areas.
like a sub area within an area that I think is big enough on its own. It should have its own little area where I could look at it and see it. And that's kind of how I'm going about it. So I have like basically, a mixture of getting things done with areas with time blocking. So if I go to work or if I go to today, I don't have anything due, but let's go to today.
And then I go to view. So this is the list view, but you could do board view, which I don't have anything. So there's only some very useful, but you can also go to the calendar view. And so you could see everything that's going on. And I'm showing everyone my calendar for some reason on the internet. I don't know why I'm doing that, but whatever, nothing bad's on here. And so it looks like I have a lunch tomorrow, which is huge. And I have a block right here and then I have my focus time. So at least get some time, but I think I should make this.
Dalton Anderson (49:51.928)
I wanna make this three hours. I will, let's say here, I'll just put this in here. So say increase.
Dalton Anderson (50:05.89)
focus.
Dalton Anderson (50:14.594)
And let's add that. And then once it's added, it really needs to be before my focus time starts. So I just put it right here. I'll just drag it on my calendar. And so this will pop up on my, and I need to change this tomorrow. Let's do this.
Dalton Anderson (50:35.544)
I'm looking at today, but, yeah, because today's a holiday. I'm like tripping out. But in this example, we would have this task and when I open up my calendar tomorrow, I would see, okay, I wanted to increase my focus time. Or if I wanted to look at my list, I would say, I need to increase my focus time and I'll go and edit it on the calendar app on my work. Eventually, this is gonna be two -way sync with your work and then two -way sync with your Google Calendar.
I don't know how companies are going to feel about having two -way sync and it might be a security issue and they won't allow it, but I think it'd be pretty cool if they would. But having two -way sync for Google calendar makes sense. Right now it's two -way sync -ish, like there is an integration for two -way sync and then they're redoing their integration. So that has less features, but it's going to be more robust in the future and more stable. So they're having this old in...
The old integration is two -way sync. The new integration is one -way sync, but you can have, if you want two -way sync, you can do that. But if you do one -way sync, you have to use the new integration and then sync your calendar, subscribe your calendar, like via Google Calendar, you subscribe to your Todoist calendar. And then all those things would pop up with advance as long as they have a duration.
and then it'll pops up on your calendar. So if I were to go to my Google calendar, it would show my event that I created, but I don't need to do that. I think you trust me. It shows up right here and here. You can see it. So if I expand it, anyways, so that's how I have my, my, I guess workflow for my task management set up.
And you can share these with people, you can have a shared list, you could get more advanced. I'm keeping it simple, trying to keep it simple and manageable. And then if you wanted to add something, there's a whole bunch of templates, and this is the template I was talking about.
Dalton Anderson (52:45.974)
it loads. Come on.
So it takes like 10 more seconds. I'm just gonna, just gonna let it go.
All right. You don't get to see the templates, but there's, they've got a lot of cool templates. I'm to stop sharing and then I'm going to get reset up. Okay. So that was my to -do is set up. I've got like a mirage of different templates that I liked. And after doing some research and some trial and error, that's what works for me for right now. And it's an ongoing thing where it's constantly changing.
So this is what's best approach for me now, but maybe a year from now I have something different. But with these apps like Todoist or TicTac, you have a one -stop shop with being a best in the class, like to -do list app. One of the biggest issues with these other apps, like I would say Notion or...
Dalton Anderson (53:48.332)
Notion or I think Notion is a big one where it's trying to become like an all in one app or Evernote. Originally these things were notes apps and now they're trying to become like an all in one app. think Notion has project management, task management, note taking, collaborative notes, collaborative projects, a collaborative Wiki pages, meetings, calendar, and it's becoming like a whole suite of
of products, which isn't a big deal, but it's just a lot of junk and extra stuff that you don't need. Where Todoist and TicTac, it does tasks and it does tasks very well. And I think that that's something you should look for. Like you should look for a task app that is phenomenal at tasks and you know, isn't going to go away.
and you can have a long -term approach to it. So it's probably going to take you like 10 months, six months. You really get settled into the app and, really get a process put together. If you're very systematic, I don't know how systematic you are. Maybe just throw stuff together, but I think it takes some time to really get settled into this app. And you want to make sure that you make the right decision because it's going to cost a lot of time to switch over to a new app. A lot of times you can't
over your previous tasks. know TicTac does task importing, so you can import your tasks. But there's formatting issues, there's other issues, so it just causes a rift for sure. Okay. So the last segment is, I have two more segments, but the next one is project management. So I've tried quite a few project management platforms.
slash software. And I think out of all of them, I would click. I would sign up and use click up. I said click because I was thinking about the name. Click up is an app that is collaborative and free for a while, where I think you collaborate with quite a few people.
Dalton Anderson (56:10.78)
And the only thing that free is limited on is like it's storage, which you don't really need like that much storage. So I would think about it as a free for that. Their notion is free forever. Like they have a freemium model and a lot of these platforms do like TicTac has a freemium model. Todoist is a freemium model. ClickUp is a freemium model where it's free. They get you sucked in and they know since you're so integrated, you're not going to switch and then
you slowly have too much stuff on there and you don't have enough storage and then you have to upgrade. That's basically it. But I think the standout to do is, or not to do is, ClickUp is they give you all the features, like pretty much every feature that you need. I think the only limitation is you can only have one form at a time. And then
That's it. Like you could have unlimited wikis. You could have wikis per project. You have sub projects. You can have teams. You have many teams. I think you have up to five teams. And that would mean that if you had a whole department or each department could be a team. So if you're managing five different departments, each department could have a team, unlimited projects, unlimited folders. And while I'm talking about this stuff, it makes a little more sense if we, if we back up for a second. So what I
I really appreciate about ClickUp is they have a hierarchical approach to their platform. So you have a space, which is like your department or your team, whatever you have a space and then underneath the space, you have a folder and then underneath a folder, you have projects. within those projects, could have sub or within those folders, you could have sub folder that could have projects in them, or you just have projects and sub projects.
And on the free plan, could have all of that, obviously for free. The only limitation is you can only have one form, like an intake form where it has basically like a Microsoft, Microsoft form or Google, Google form where you have it, you have questions and intakes and then the form outputs and put it onto a project and you can manage your stuff like a bug intake or whatever.
Dalton Anderson (58:33.794)
feature enhancements, something like that. And you can only have one form, which is fine. I mean, for free, you have workflow creation. have collaborative documents on the Wiki. You've got project notes. can, you can design things that you could design like in Visio on there. It's very powerful and free and it's collaborative. And that's what we're using. The product team, the one that
I'm the, I'm helping manage, I'm the product manager. That's what we decided. We tried many different ones and I've used Monday for a year. I've used, and I wouldn't have switched because it's a pain to switch, but the company that I work for just went separate ways, like a different approach. they didn't, they felt like they didn't mean need Monday anymore, which I think is fair because Monday isn't that good.
There's Monday, I've had Asana for a year at a previous company. I have used Wrinkle. I've used quite a few. And hands down, the best pricing and the features and the UI and just the overall flow and approach, I think ClickUp wins. After that, I would probably put Asana or Wrinkle.
And then last I put Monday. Monday is just, Monday's rough. Like any of these, please do not choose Monday because a lot of these platforms, they're all offering pretty much similar things. Like they have different focus points. I don't know what Monday's focus point is. Like they're trying to be like a CRM when that's not really what they're built for. Like they're more of a project management and they're trying to transition to be like a CRM. Wrinkle.
you know, it's pretty similar to ClickUp. I feel like they're, pretty head to head competitors. And then Asana is more like emphasis on collaboration and commenting and you have a task inbox with your comments and things that were updated and you kind of have a daily flow, but they all pretty much have
Dalton Anderson (01:00:52.758)
reporting mechanisms for their projects.
Dalton Anderson (01:00:58.38)
That's not any different. Some of them are more robust than others. They all have automations. They all have third party integrations. And so none of those things are unique. It's really like the approach of the product and the UI and the features that you get on the free level. And if you want to pay premium, that's fine. We're a small team. So we don't necessarily need that. We're just trying to manage our projects better.
and our tasks and these one off things for enhancements or bugs for our systems that we built in house. Okay. So with ClickUp, one thing that I thought was really neat is when you have a space and you have all these projects under a space. like we have the product team and say we have 40 projects ongoing with myself and the analyst Jimmy, who is phenomenal by the way.
If we have all these projects, it rolls it up to a project or like the project, all those tasks are rolled up on that project. You could view how that project is performing and then it rolls up not to, I don't think it rolls up to the folder.
if I recall correctly, but it does roll up to the space. So you could see how all your projects across your space are performing and it rolls everything up. So you could see like your workload of who's working on what, what things are delayed and how much are they delayed by and potentially what the reasoning is and kind of like root cause analysis of like how we're performing and how we're executing on our initiatives, which I think is great because these other products don't, you're not, you don't do that. I think Asana does that.
better. And that's one of the main reasons why I love this sauna. But I think a sauna is overpriced and their free option isn't as robust, nowhere near as robust as ClickUp. So for me, ClickUp is the winner. I think UI wise ClickUp is the best, has the best features for their free plan. It has the hierarchical approach, which is really only done by a sauna very well.
Dalton Anderson (01:03:04.95)
So really if you want that hierarchical approach, which I think is really important for project management when you're managing, if you're not like a project manager and you're more of like a program manager or a departmental manager and you're managing many different areas and you have to keep track of all these things, segmenting these projects into areas and folders and having them all roll up to your departmental view is very useful.
and important. Like if I wasn't going to use ClickUp, I would probably use Asana because Asana allows you to do that. They do projects and then I think projects they, I don't know what they call it above that. And then after that, they call them portfolios. I think it's only projects and portfolios, but it's pretty decent. So it rolls everything up and you could, you could see your dashboard and you're reporting at the portfolio level.
Okay, so transitioning over to things that didn't make the cut. So I think the first one is too complex would be this no app notion is like I briefly talked about it earlier. It's trying to be like the everything app. It's trying to do everything like, like legitimately, it is crazy the amount of stuff that they're trying to fit in the app. And I could pull it up. I made some I made some stuff. I was playing around with it.
and using it as a template, like using some of the templates and stuff. Let me sign in and then I'll share my screen and we can look at it together. It's just it's just too much like it works on your desktop. But when I what I said earlier was, hey, like you want something that if you were given an idea on the fly or suggestion on the fly, you want to just be able to unlock your phone one click.
Click on the app, two clicks, and then within like three clicks, you wanna be able to start typing your task or your note. With Notion, I mean, there's just so much stuff going on in it, and it just seems like it's a mess. Like, I know that it has great collaboration features and is very powerful, but beyond that, I just...
Dalton Anderson (01:05:32.47)
I don't have a high level of interest in it. Let's see, sharing.
Okay. So I'm sharing, I'm sharing this, this thing. Let me close this out on the side. Okay. So I'm sharing my, my weekly to -do list is one of the templates and you click this and it makes a whole new list, which is, guess is nice, but it, it, that's all that, that's all it is. Like it doesn't have, it doesn't really have any powerful features on doing it's, it has, you know, the ability to make
rich text editing or that, but it doesn't have anything like, okay, like let's do what's, what's trigger tasks by where you're at in the world or where you're at in your house, not your house. That'd be crazy level of geo -fencing, but like having these tasks being triggered, like where you're at, like by your location is pretty cool. Like when you get home, you know, if you get home from a trip,
or a work trip and you know you're going on that work trip and you are bad at texting your family that you're you're home like myself. I would you could set a task for yourself. Okay, tell my family I'm type of your message, whatever. And then it would send you a notification like hey, like tell your family you're home when you're home. Like when you when you get home that task get triggered after you got back from your trip. Like that kind of stuff isn't you can't really do that.
So this is this life Wiki and this kind of example where this is kind of the dashboard of all your stuff. And then so you can have a reading list, you can have all this stuff and it's all linked out. And like this is a table and it has the link and other stuff. But this is the issue is like, okay, on mobile, you're not gonna be able to create all these side linked pages and fill out.
Dalton Anderson (01:07:32.864)
the status of it and like the rating, the author, all these different, different requirements.
It just, it seems good on the computer, but on your phone, the stuff doesn't work. Like all this stuff, all this table stuff, all this other stuff, it just isn't gonna fly on that scale. And at a certain point, okay, is it worth having this huge table and this long list? Or is it better just to use Google Docs or?
Google Sheets and do it that way. I don't know. I just don't know how much utility these things are offering me besides having them in these different sheets. Like the skull stuff I think is pretty sweet. Sorry, I had a cough. Still getting them, still sick. The Sudu thing is pretty sweet but overall, man, this is way too complicated to just be like a notes app. They're just trying to do everything but they're
their to do stuff isn't as good as to do is or tick tick their notes are like all over the place. Like it's just, they're just like too much going on. Like just get, give me something simple that works and is equip snap. Stop sharing. Okay. So that was my to do is slash tick tick, slash notion and comparison.
where Todoist and Notion are really only good at...
Dalton Anderson (01:09:19.082)
tasking, but Notion tries to be a collaborator or workflow manager, project management, task management, note taking, wiki creating.
Dalton Anderson (01:09:36.77)
just overall like massive platform. You don't need all that complication in your life. Like life's complicated enough. And there's this other note taking app, Obsidian, which I think is probably the more promising of the two. It's not as complicated, but I think the learning curve to get started is pretty high where you have to know markdown. I know markdown cause I do a lot of programming, but obsidian seemed like it's, it's more teetered toward or catered to
like PhD people that are writing like PhD papers and like people are programming, but I don't know how mainstream it's ever going to get. It seems popular enough, like with 200 ,000 people in their Reddit, I think like 260 or 160, close to 200 ,000. But overall I love the UI. I just felt like it might be a little too complicated to be able to just pick up and just snap. And don't, I don't know how much value it's offering with
this, the note taking part. I don't know. Lacking features and buggy. I would put wrinkle in that, in the area. So wrinkles that project management app where it just seemed when I was making tasks that I was typing the task name and it was kicking me out of the, the title, the task title and putting me somewhere else. And then I had to keep clicking on the task, like the task title.
and going back and forth and every three words is kicking me out. And after that was happening like four times, I was like, okay, I'm done. I'm done with this. Like I need something where I can easily make tasks for these projects for work. If I can't do that, then what's the point? So that's why wrinkle is no more. I put my clothes to the dryer. They're no longer wrinkly. Okay. So price not justifiable.
I would say a sauna, a sauna is more expensive than competitors in their same area, like same space. So it's more expensive than Monday. It's more expensive than wrinkle. It's more expensive than click up by quite a bit, I think like $8 more per month. And so it doesn't offer as many features and it is well polished and it's a great UI.
Dalton Anderson (01:12:03.244)
But if you're getting the less features and you're paying more money and you don't have like any large differences between the two.
I think it's a difficult case to make that Asana is like fundamentally better or has that much more of an enticing offering, which isn't the case obviously because it's overpriced. Okay, so there's this other app called Samsama and Samsama I mentioned earlier is an app that specializes in time blocking. So Todoist is an app that does
tasking really well. And I talked about that like to do this and, and TicTac do tasking very well. One thing that it doesn't do and it's starting to build out those features and same thing with TicTac is time blocking within the app. they, they recently released a calendar view where you could see your calendar that of that day, or you could also look at your upcoming events and view your calendar. You can see like the upcoming week and you can kind of plan out your week and time block your week. And that's going to
those time blocks that you create are going to be populated onto your work calendar and your personal calendar and whoever you're sharing it with. But before you really didn't have that option. Like that wasn't available. And that's pretty much a new feature. I would say within the last six months for sure that came out and before you can make these tasks, but you had no way of getting them onto your calendar. So some Sama was the
intermediary between your calendar and your tasking platform that you use. And some Sama would combine your tasks, make them into events, add durations on them, and have advanced planning around the tasks that you have. But the price for it is pretty steep. They're saying $20 a month. So, and it was something I was looking at because I was like, okay, if I could save myself hours a week, not really safe, but
Dalton Anderson (01:14:14.904)
use my hours in my week much more efficiently. And that would potentially give me more free time or make me more productive and more valuable to my team than 20 bucks is not that much. In my opinion, so, you know, I'd be all in for time management at what $25 a month. Which if it saves me, say it's say it makes me more productive for just
low estimates, 10 hours a week, like my personal time and my work time. That's that's pretty low. Like maybe it's five, five and five. That's huge, huge. Twenty five bucks a week is like jump change. Like that's something that you compare. People compare with these A .I. where they're like, it's twenty dollars a month for the best model. And I just think that's that's steep and it's too much money. And then I asked them, OK, how many?
How many subscriptions do you think you have? And they're like, well I've got Netflix. I've got NFL sports package. I've got peacock. I've got Hulu and all sorts of subscriptions they have. And then I asked them how many of those subscriptions save you time?
and then they get silent and they're like none of them and I was like exactly so
How about you try to use some subscriptions that save you time? Just try it out and see how much time you save. And if you don't save any time, then get rid of it. But I think people, for some of these subscriptions, especially this time management thing, they would get caught up on the price, $20 a month is crazy for time blocking, but if you could save 10 hours a week, then it's super valuable and could become integral to your workflow.
Dalton Anderson (01:16:12.792)
So that's my approach. And so I'm willing to spend the money if it saves me time, but I am going to use to do with this feature that they have. And it might not be as robust, but I think it gets the job done and it saves me 20 bucks a month. And it doesn't cost me that much time to use that feature. Okay. So those were everything that I discovered during my workflow remap.
where I was very concerned with how things were going and I wasn't getting enough work done. It wasn't I wasn't getting enough work done. I mean, if we first say, I wasn't getting enough deep work time slots. So I wasn't getting enough time in the deep work sector, sector or segment of my workflow. And so that was a concern because I wasn't doing enough coding and I wasn't getting those, those high value projects completed. I'm not saying the things that I work on are high value, but
those things related to programming, saved the whole team a lot of time. And many of the meetings I'm in are longer term picture, like one month away or three weeks away or one quarter away or six months down the line that I'm planning. And so the team won't see that for a while, but the coding thing, keep working on that. That saves everyone time and is high value for the group. Okay, yeah.
That was my thought process and my productivity stack and how I go about my time management. I use different methodologies and techniques depending on the situation. As I said before, I use eat the frog for workouts. I use the pomodoro technique and eat the frog for tasks that are dragging. I gave you an example about reporting issues for long -term initiatives. I use day theming, which is used by
founders and CEOs and for deep work time slots, use time blocking to allow myself some time to do some head down work. And my, my experience with, with deep work is I typically are doing programming.
Dalton Anderson (01:18:31.106)
for...
Dalton Anderson (01:18:36.438)
resource allocation. use the Eisenhower matrix and there you go. Like that. That's how I go about my time management. I feel like I use my time pretty efficiently and I hope that I keep improving it and maybe I can get some more time. I mean, would be love. I would love the idea of just maybe we, we can't really slow the earth rotation, but maybe we can speed up so many tasks that mentally
we're spending half the time that we normally spend on things. And maybe we could just free up another 12 hours of our day. That'd be great. Because I can't get more time, but I can only use my time more efficiently. So I hope that you liked this episode this week. I am going to be discussing next week, Gemiini gyms, which are...
AI agents that now are released. So now I can use these AI agents to create my own gems. And so we'll see, I don't know how full fledged the features are going to be, but what they demoed, looked pretty cool. I did some trial and error before this episode to give some snippets about it. And I overall think it's going to be pretty cool and promising. And I liked the direction that Gemini is taking or Google's taking with Gemini. I,
kind of like they're theming. Maybe they're naming conventions are a little bit less confusing than before. And hopefully they keep this direction with different branding of the different segments of their LLMs or AI offerings. Cause I know some of their other stuff was quite confusing. They're keeping with the gym. think they've got Gema, Gemify or Gemini.
One other one. I don't know. They've got like five different models all named with this, with G and I at the end. So it's hard to keep up sometimes with that, but yeah, I hope you liked the episode. And if you, wow, it's our 20. I hope that you liked the episode. And if you enjoy these episodes, please like and subscribe or follow wherever you're seeing this podcast at it definitely.
Dalton Anderson (01:20:58.154)
increases my view, viewage with the algorithm. And so my viewership goes up and it gives me an opportunity to help other people or entertain other people. And so that's my ask to you. And of course, wherever you are in this world, have a good day, have a good night, have a good afternoon, and I'll talk to you next week. Peace.