To-do List Evolved

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To-do List Evolved

Welcome

An 8 minute interactive tutorial for a new set of tools and an invaluable skill, to evolve your productivity, time and attention, 2x and beyond—forever.

The evolution of the to-do list

Evolving the to-do list to unlock your productivity, time, and attention, is in fact, not a to-do list at all.

The key to productivity, and one of the most valuable skills in today’s society is to master how to make best use of what we all have, and can’t create any more of—24 hours per day— and become indistractable.

This doc and app will give you the tools to integrate these 4 strategies into your life so you—yourself—can become indistractable.

Master internal triggers

Make time for traction

Hack back external triggers

Prevent distraction with pacts

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🥳 Bonus:

Universal capture tool (

Save to Coda⁠

)

Replace Calendly with this booking system (

Bookings⁠

)

Everything synced with your Google Calendar

To get started:

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Copy this doc

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The productivity tool trap

The common trap for start ups, companies, creators, teams, and productivity hackers like you, when looking to take an entirely new approach to a problem, is to iteratively make it better.

The trap to evolve the to-do list is to share with you some to-do list with a new interface or a new way to organize your to-dos, when in fact we believe the evolved to-do list, is in fact not a to-do list at all. In typical Dropify fashion, we think differently.

Dropify is a small team, tackling a big problem:

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We believe we can make an impact on this problem, by thinking different and taking new approaches to creator problems. You’ll notice that in this new productivity toolset we’re sharing with you today, and in more of our products, follow us on Twitter

@dropifyxyz⁠

. You can also follow one of our co-founders on TikTok:

tiktok.com/@matt.lacue⁠

for more content like this.

The to-do list problem

We’ll give you the run down, and a much better toolset to:

transform how you see yourself for the productive creator you truly are

remove distractions, and give you traction to accomplish your biggest goals

clear your mind when you’re not working

These 3 propositions are actually solutions to a deeper problem: you’re using a to-do list.

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To-do lists stop your growth

To-do lists often carry on to the next day, and the next day. You’ll see this in other to-do list tools that have features to make it easier to push things to the next day. This is the iteration trap we were talking about. In an effort make you happier with your to-do list by making tasks easier, to-do list tool makers are accidentally designing products that to harm you and, in turn, your productivity.

If you see yourself as the type of person to never complete anything, this is going to reflect in your behaviour.

You’ll say things to yourself like:

Ugh, my ADHD brain makes deadlines impossible...

I’ll finish this tomorrow...

Labelling yourself with these self-limited beliefs will in fact make them true. In a

meta-analysis⁠

psychologists found that if you believe you have limited willpower, you indeed will have limited willpower.

To-do lists are distractions

Remember all those to-dos that other tools made it easier to group into some category for you to tackle next time. They are distractions:

Why was this here again? [opens email...]

That reminds me I should update the team about this... [opens Slack...]

To-do lists create intrusive thoughts

Our modern societies are getting more and more free time from technology innovations, yet we all feel busier.

We take time off from work, but can’t turn off our thoughts.

All from that out of control, always on your mind, anxiety inducing, to-do list.

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By the way, this new set of tools, and studies that back up these claims has been talked about much more in depth in Nir Eyal’s book—Indistractable. You can listen to it or read it on Amazon using our link and support us to make more products for creators like you.

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📖 Listen or read Indistractable on Amazon.⁠

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How to be indistractable

Coming up is an interactive walkthrough with the 4 strategies and tools to become indistractable. Once you make it to the end you can use the tools on their dedicated pages, sync your own Google Calendar, and even start customizing the doc leveraging the Coda ecosystem to suit your specific needs. To do that, all you have to do is:

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Copy this doc

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1) Master internal triggers

Time management is pain management.

Most of our distractions start from within. When we experience uncomfortable emotions and discomfort, we want to escape from them, and that’s how we gain distraction instead of traction.

Psychologists recommend a powerful tool for controlling internal triggers called: surfing the urge. It has immediate results, will most often get you back on track, and will train your brain to ignore those urges in the future. Similar to how meditation would. Nir Eyal calls it the 10 minute rule.

You aren’t going to tell yourself—no. That will make you want it more.

Don’t say “no” to yourself, say “not yet”.

You can give into any distraction you’d like, but in 10 minutes.

Start

Reset

Time left

Start timer

Reset

0:00

There are no rows in this table

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To get even more long term benefits, you can spend the 10 minutes using a tool that psychologists recommend to understand ourselves and build more self-awareness: a diary. We need to log the emotion of what happens right before we get distracted, ie: we check our notifications, open our email, open social media, etc.

My Internal Trigger Diary

My Internal Trigger Diary

Prompt

Diary Entry

Explore You

I feel triggered when...

Open

There are no rows in this table

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More often than not, you won’t give into the urge, but if you rode the wave, it’s completely fine to give in. You’ll get better over time!

If a distracting thought comes, you can use

Save to Coda⁠

to capture the thought and schedule time to review it later—more on scheduling in the next section. You can then use Coda Automations to apply rules to the content you’ve captured to organize and fit it into your workflow, ie: if you used a specific hashtag.

2) Make time for traction

Traction is action that pulls us towards our goals and values.

You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it is distracting you from.

This tool is used by all top performing knowledge workers and creators: a schedule. Using a schedule doesn’t only make you indistractable, but it helps you time-box, the other tool all top performing knowledge workers and creators use.

Here we’re leveraging a strategy psychologists call an implementation intention.

Step 1: Brain dump

Step 1: Brain dump

Brain Dump Item

Mark as important

Start typing here... Shift-enter for a new line Hit enter twice (x2) to start a new row if you’d like

Important

There are no rows in this table

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At the start of your day, get those thoughts out of your brain and on a surface. Mark what’s important. Important items will move to the next step: time-boxing. Marking 3 items is recommended. Make sure they line up with your goals and what you value (life domains).

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Clear brain dump

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Start with YOU, then RELATIONSHIPS, then WORK.

First, doing this you will start to respect you, and your time. Second, the people you love deserve more than getting whatever time is leftover, and a lack of friendships and belonging will hurt you and your health.

This doc and app syncs with your Google Calendar so it should be easier to sync your schedule with your work domain.

P.S. Your brain dump will clear daily so it doesn’t distract you via a Coda Automation.

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Task matches:

April 26, 2024

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Step 2: Tasks

Step 2: Tasks

Task

Life Domain

Update GCal Event

Add GCal Event

Delete GCal Event

No results from filter

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Copy GCal Events to Todos (Runs Hourly)

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Connect your Google Calendar below to sync your calendar. You can manually run the sync by clicking the refresh button in the table below then clicking the copy button above. Both run hourly with Coda Automations.

GCal Events

GCal Events

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Step 3: Timebox your day

Step 3: Timebox your day

Fri, Apr 26, 2024

Day

Today

9:00 AM

9:30 AM

10:00 AM

10:30 AM

11:00 AM

11:30 AM

12:00 PM

12:30 PM

1:00 PM

1:30 PM

2:00 PM

2:30 PM

3:00 PM

3:30 PM

4:00 PM

4:30 PM

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You can drag and drop your events and time slots like you would in Google Calendar (desktop only). You can also double click the calendar day view to add an event just like Google Calendar (desktop only).

Time-boxing allows you to control the inputs (your time and attention) not the outcomes. Controlling these inputs will actually help you accomplish more of your outcomes. To-do lists are designed to only work if you know how to control and estimate the outcome, which in todays fast paced society is close to impossible. Psychologists agree and coined it the

planning fallacy⁠

in 1977.

Keep in mind the goal is to not change your calendar in the moment, you should only be updating your calendar for the day or week to come. You’ll get better at this day by day.

The goal is to spend the time you intending on spending, not to complete a task. You’ll get better overtime, and you will notice you’ll still complete your work. Next you’ll learn more on how to control your attention.

My Time-box Diary

My Time-box Diary

Created on

Prompt

Rating

Add Diary Entry

6/9/2022, 5:04 PM

Looking back to your schedulehow distracted were you today?

Add Diary Entry

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P.S. this is great tool to use to communicate with your boss (if you aren’t self-employed). And it all syncs with your Google Calendar, so no need to share this with them, unless you want to help them of course 😉 .

3) Hack back external triggers

We learned the strategies and tools to control your time, and manage feeling uncomfortable. Remember:

Time management is pain management.

Next we’ll learn about the tools to prevent external triggers, like notifications, etc, that will distract you away from the actions you’ve intended to spend your time on from the previous section.

Is this external trigger serving me, or am I serving it?

That is the ultimate question it comes down to.

Online content and articles are easy distractions, especially for knowledge workers and creators. Make use of

Save to Coda⁠

by using it as your universal capture tool to capture content you want to consume later in a time you’ve made on your schedule from the previous section. You can make use of Coda Automation Rules (like the ones in this doc) to detect certain hashtags and tag them so you have a specific view/list where you can consume content you wanted later. In your schedule there are times you can multitask and consume the content you’ve saved for later, like if you made time for working out or taking a walk.

Communications over email, text, slack, etc. can be huge time syncs. Set the intention for when you want to communicate when time-boxing and making time from traction in the previous section.

Meetings are often not effectively used. They are great for building consensus. You can use the /two-way writeup command on any doc and page in Coda to use a great template to distribute information, understand how everyone is feeling, team input on a decision, and discussions. Information from this template will help you create the most important artifact for a meeting: the agenda.

Put distracting apps like social media in secondary screens and not your home page screen for extra friction. So that there’s more intention when using these apps and they can serve you instead of you serving the algorithm.

Controlling notifications in your apps and mobile devices will make a huge impact on your productivity. On iOS devices you can make use of

Scheduled Notification Summary⁠

. On Android you can make use of a

Do Not Disturb schedule⁠

. You can use this in conjunction with how you’ve intended to spend your time from the previous section.

4) Prevent distractions with pacts

Pacts are your last resort to prevent you from getting distracted. You need to first master your internal triggers, make time for traction, and hack back external triggers with all the tools and strategies we’ve shared.

Effort pact: make unwanted behaviours more difficult to do

Price pact: add cost/penalty to getting distracted

We built in a price pact into

Save to Coda⁠

. If you’re reading this you are likely prone to distraction when you’re browsing online, which you likely do everyday. So, each 5 day streak you use

Save to Coda⁠

and you’ve sign up to it through this doc, you get a credit for 25% of a month subscription. So get 4 streaks and you’ll save the cost of 1 month, when you renew.

Identity pact: an agreement to how you see your future self, which you can practice by embodying and sharing

Spend some time bi-weekly to review your pacts, improve how you articulate them, or write some new ones down. You can use Coda Automations to remind you.

My Pacts

My Pacts

Pact

Pact Type

Description

Save to Coda Price Pact

💵 Price

If you give into not saving stuff for later with

Save to Coda

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when browsing online, when you haven’t intended to, you’ll lose out on savings when you renew

Save to Coda

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Earn savings on

Save to Coda

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subscription with 4, 5 day streaks.

I am indistractable

🧘 Identity

I use the tools in this doc and app, and I share what I’ve learned and how I use these tools with my family, friends, and colleagues.

There are no rows in this table

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🥳 That’s a wrap!

You’ve completed the interactive walkthrough and you’re one step closer to having one of the most valuable skills in todays economy—being indistractable. These tools and strategies can increase your productivity, time, and attention by 2x and beyond. You can access these tools individually through the navigation bar for quicker access, or return to this page when you need a refresher. Once you copy the doc you can literally customize, anything you’d like. Or hit the ground running with how the doc and app is already setup (recommended).

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Copy this doc

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