How I work
Not what I sell. How I approach something when it lands on my desk.
The material first, then the structure
Most conversations about productivity start with a tool. Which app, which board, which calendar. That is the wrong place to start.
I start with what is actually there. The 4,000 unread emails, the note in your notebook, the three promises from a hallway conversation. Until all of that material is on the table, any structure is a guess.
The tool comes last
Once it is clear what kind of decisions you make every day, the tool question usually answers itself. Before that, it is a matter of taste.
I build in what you already have. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Apple. Switching platforms is a decision of its own and rarely the first one to make.
Getting Things Done as the foundation
I have worked with Getting Things Done for twenty years and I am a certified trainer. It is the frame I think in. Capture, clarify, organize, review, do.
None of this has to be visible on your side. If you know the method, you will recognize it in the finished system. If you do not, your workday will run fine without it ever coming up.
It is done when it holds
A system that only works during the week it was set up is not done. That is why I work with your real material and across several appointments, with everyday work in between.
What fails in daily use, we rebuild. What holds, stays.
I build what I recommend
I have written software since I was ten, and professionally since 1998. When a script, an automation or a custom tool is the better answer somewhere, I can build it instead of just recommending it.
That is the difference this site is about.
Where this is spelled out
The points above are the stance. What it looks like in practice is written out at length in the log — including the places where it typically fails.
Material and inbox
- Capturing personal material — the mind sweep for topics with no sender
- The same thing concretely in Outlook — one quick step, three keys
- Processing and working are two modes — why the morning disappears into the inbox
Structure
- Work the horizons from the bottom up — with four why questions
- Goals and areas of responsibility — the level above the project list
- Contexts by energy instead of by place — Admin, Focus, Creative
- A daily board that holds up — without a second system
- When a project is stuck — which step it is hanging on
- Seven lists, each with one question — and which are almost always missing
- When the project list paralyses you — the number is not the problem
- What belongs in the calendar — and what makes it useless
The day and its decisions
- Decide the day the evening before — so the morning only has to execute
- How to defend the plan for your day — without damaging the relationship
Review and upkeep
- The list for everything that is not now — and how it avoids becoming a graveyard
- The weekly review, step by step — and why it takes some people five hours
Tools and automation
- When a system change is justified — and when it is an excuse
- What AI takes over and what it does not — the line is sharp
- Six automations running in my own setup
Working with others
- A no that arrives as a no — spotting hedges and cutting them
- A kanban board for the whole family — and why your partner does not have to join in
- The first two minutes of a meeting