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One Notebook, One App, One Rule
I had 12 notebooks, 11 productivity apps, and zero rules that I actually followed. I was busy, organized, and burned out. Then I deleted everything and switched to one cheap notebook, one app, and one non-negotiable rule. My deep work tripled and my anxiety disappeared.
My desk used to look like a productivity store exploded.
A Moleskine for ideas. A Leuchtturm for daily tasks. A Field Notes in my pocket for quick capture. A Notion dashboard for life OS. Todoist for tasks. Obsidian for second brain. Sunsama for time blocking. Google Calendar for meetings. Apple Notes for quick notes. Readwise for highlights. And a whiteboard with 23 sticky notes that were all urgent.
12 notebooks. 11 apps. 0 finished books. 0 calm days.
One Sunday night I spent 2 hours organizing my productivity system and did zero productive work. My wife looked at my desk and said, “You don’t have a productivity system. You have a productivity hobby.”
She was right.
The next morning I took all 12 notebooks and put them in a box. I deleted 10 apps from my phone. I bought a $2 pocket notebook from a convenience store and kept only my calendar app.
And I made one rule that would run the whole system.
