The Best Getting Things Done Task Manager
(and How I Use it Everyday)

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #533: The Best Getting Things Done Task Manager (and How I Use it Everyday)

Jeff Sanders
I use my Task Manager more than my calendar.

I rely on my Task Manager more than literally every other piece of technology in my daily life.

There is no replacement for my Task Manager and no other app has ever come close to this one.

This is The 5 AM Miracle, episode number 533.

The best getting things done Task Manager and how I use it every day.

Good morning and welcome to The 5 AM Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down the nuts and bolts of my all-time favorite Task Manager, how I use this Task Manager to keep me organized and going forward every day, and why you should consider adopting a similar system even if your favorite tools are different than mine.

Let's dig in.

My wife Tessa and I have been married now for just under 15 years.

And one thing that has been true for the vast majority of our marriage has been the integration of Nozbe, my all-time favorite Task Manager.

You could argue that I am as married to Nozbe as I am to Tessa.

It's not quite that intense, but it kind of is.

Now Nozbe is a Task Manager that is designed and built by an amazing guy named Michael Slowinski and his team in Poland and their amazing work to create a Task Manager that is based on David Allen's Getting Things Done system.

And I'll break down more of those details here in just a minute.

But one thing that I think is worth noting, it's worth telling the story of, is how I have integrated Nozbe into my marriage.

And this is going to sound odd at first, but just follow the story.

If you know me, you know that I am very good at getting things done.

That's literally why I do this podcast.

It's why I teach productivity.

It is one of my greatest skills is seeing a task and I can execute on that task, get it done, organize it, filter it, renegotiate where it belongs.

I just love to check boxes.

It's just kind of who I am and what I do.

Now for a long time, I did so in a haphazard way.

I had various systems with calendars and notebooks and to-do lists and typical approaches to productivity that during my college years worked fine, but I was testing a variety of them and many of them just weren't that great.

And I knew it, but I did the job, got the degree and I moved on.

It wasn't until I discovered Nozbe that I realized what I was missing.

And what I was missing was a system that thought the way that I did.

A system that said, "Hey, here's a way that your brain works and functions and gets things done and you can just pour your brain through this software and organize what matters and get those things done and then I can execute at a very high level."

And so here's where the marriage part kicks in.

For years, Tessa and I have worked on a variety of things together as a couple, whether that's buying a home or just buying groceries once a week or now we have two kids and so organizing schedules and daycare drop-offs and all kinds of shenanigans that go on with being young parents or parents of young kids, we'll say.

And in that process, one thing that has been very obvious to both of us, which is that we don't work the same way.

As much as I love Nozbe and my task manager and all my systems I teach here on this show, Tessa doesn't do hardly any of them.

She has her own system, her own ways of operation that just don't overlap with mine very often.

We do think alike in a lot of ways, but when it comes to our daily productivity, we have vastly different approaches.

Both of them highly effective, both of them get the job done, they're just different.

And so one thing that I have been, I don't know, reminding Tessa of for a long time is how I work.

And this is a huge part about communication in any relationship where you want to make sure that each of you is on the same page or at least that you understand the other person enough to give them what they need.

And so part of that reality for me when it comes to task management and the execution of these various projects is that if Tessa, who has access to my Nozbe account, if she were to add a task onto my task list, she could basically delegate one to me through the system.

I can guarantee it gets done.

I call this my Jeff Sanders Nozbe guarantee.

And it's something that I have been working with Tessa on for a long time, which is the reminder part comes in where I say, you know what, Tessa, there's this thing that you want me to get done.

And that's awesome.

If you tell me this thing audibly, like verbally, like we have a conversation about it, I can't guarantee it gets done.

Even if I say yes during the conversation, even if we have a full in-depth discussion about something, if there's an action for me at the end of this conversation, I don't know what it is if it just stops there.

However, if that action winds up in my task manager and it's in the system, oh, game over.

We just changed the entire conversation now because I will guarantee it gets done.

And this is an interesting reality for me because you might say, well, Jeff, maybe you should just be better at listening during a conversation, better at your marriage.

That's a side point.

We'll get to that on another episode.

The point that I'm trying to make here is that I know me and I know certain ways that I operate and the systems that I rely on that work really well.

I want to make sure that both Tessa and I are in alignment with those great solutions.

And the same thing is true for her as well, that I give her what she needs using her systems of choice that make sure that both of us get the end result we're going for.

And so with our marriage, when we have a common task or project or working on some daycare scheduling, whatever the case may be, if she takes a task and adds it to my Nozbe account, I will guarantee it gets done.

Why?

Well, it's a really interesting question with a very simple answer.

I can guarantee that any task that she puts into Nozbe for me will get done because Nozbe is deeply integrated into how I view my daily tasks.

My task manager, in this case, the software is Nozbe, but my task manager plays a central role in how I get things done every single day.

And I'll break down the whole GTD system in a second, but just know for now that when you have a single app, a single strategy, a single source for your solution for how things get filtered through your brain every day, you can guarantee if your system is built well, you can guarantee that a lot is going to get done because it's going through the system that you built on purpose.

To my point previously about the example of Tessa and I have a conversation about something and I can't guarantee it gets done.

Well, the reason why I can't is because I'll probably forget about whatever it is.

And that's a huge part of this too, is that I want to make sure that whatever matters is in a system where I'm not going to have to use my brain to remember it.

There's a lot of components here, but let's just kind of get the core of the concept of the episode going.

Now I want to discuss exactly what Nozbe is and any good task manager, specifically ones designed for the GTD or getting things done model by David Allen.

And then of course a full breakdown of how I use this every day to guarantee that my tasks that are on this list will get done.

So you can have that same sense of power and control over your day and your time and your goal achievement and possibly even your relationships or marriages.

Maybe you'll be able to make those better because you have a common system that works for everyone involved.

Okay.

So let's begin this conversation by getting a little more specific about why a task manager, what is it, what role does it play?

And then we'll dig into exactly where Nozbe fits in as well as David Allen's GTD system.

So first and foremost, in my world of productivity, I view task management and project management and event management all through the lens of your very common apps you're familiar with.

Things like a calendar, a to-do list, a project manager, or a task manager.

So a calendar is going to include events that are time and location based.

And so anything that is going to happen on a certain date at a certain time at a certain place, generally you're going to schedule it on a calendar so you know where to be and when, which is separate from the entire world of project and task management, which is generally a list of a variety of things to get done and where they get done and when they get done could vary quite a bit.

And so most of us tend to use systems that fall into one of these categories.

And so the task manager is essentially a glorified to-do list.

It's a post-it note times a hundred or a thousand or infinite because you could literally have as much data as you want.

So any kind of cloud-based software tool task manager that falls in this category, Asana is a good example of that, or Trello, there's a bunch that are out there.

Nozbe is my app of choice, but there's a lot of apps here that could fit the bill for what I'm discussing.

Now from my perspective, a task manager that's built well is going to give you a lot of flexibility to organize all your various to-do lists and projects in a variety of ways.

It may or may not include calendar functionality, but really the core and the goal of this is to have a bunch of different lists that could organize these various tasks and then you can schedule them and have reminders.

That's kind of the nuts and bolts of a high level task management system that's built well.

So now let's get to the more specifics about exactly why I chose Nozbe.

And then if you want to do a test of that system and compare it to other to-do lists or apps that are out there, you definitely can.

If you want to learn more about Nozbe right now, you can go to jeffsanders.com/getnozbe.

Now I have discussed Nozbe a lot on this podcast in the past.

So if you are familiar with it or you already have used it, I'm going to go through more specifics than I have in the past.

So this is more of a deep dive into this app because I love it so much because I rely on it literally every day for so many things.

And you're going to see why in just a second.

So to answer the question, why Nozbe?

Reason number one is that it's technologically available everywhere.

A PC, a Mac, your iPhone, iPad, Android device, web browsers, Apple watch.

It is on every device you could possibly imagine.

So if you are tech savvy and you own a lot of gadgets, Nozbe is on all of them.

I almost can guarantee you it is everywhere.

Now I do want to pause here to acknowledge that I'm discussing digital solutions here, not pen and paper, not your analog solutions with a notepad.

I don't use paper.

I'll discuss more of that in a minute, but I, this is all digital for a reason.

The kinds of technology involved here for the reminder systems and scheduling an organization, you're just not gonna be able to get with a paper solution.

So if you want that, I'm sorry, that's not how I operate.

It's not what I teach.

I don't think it's very effective.

That's that.

Okay.

So reason number two, why Nozbe is so fantastic is it is based on David Allen's getting things done methodology.

If you have not read the very famous book, getting things done by David Allen, you should definitely do so stop this podcast right now and go read that book.

It is foundational for anyone who cares about productivity at a high level because it sets the tone for these core philosophies and systems and strategies that so many things are built on today, including software like Nozbe as well as many other strategies that you probably already use anyway, without realizing it's based on GTD.

Okay.

Let's break down what GTD includes.

There are five major areas of what that system includes.

There's lots of others as well, but five core ones and Nozbe allows you to integrate with these as well.

The first is the ability to capture new ideas, to easily dump ideas into an inbox and then filter those ideas later.

And Nozbe it's literally called the inbox.

Lots of apps will have that as well.

But first and foremost, you have to have a place to capture what is popping up, right?

Any new idea, any new thought, anything that has to be written down, recorded and not forgotten is captured in the system.

Second key area is to clarify or add extra detail to fully flesh out the idea.

Of course, it knows we have that ability as well with lots of different comments and links, which I'll break down in a second.

The third area is to organize the results.

GTD is very list based.

There are lots of lists.

I know people who do not like this system because they feel like they're lost in too many lists and too many notes and too many ideas.

It's just too much.

And I get it.

I get that that's part of the system and to organize what shows up can be a daunting task.

However, the alternative is to not write it down and then therefore possibly forget it or not have a system that would have a database to access that information.

There's some problems with it as well.

So what you want to make sure you do is choose a system that once again works with your brain that allows you to do your best work in the way that you think, which may not be these solutions I'm discussing.

That's that's possible.

The fourth area of GTD is to reflect or to easily review possibly a weekly basis, your system to keep it up to date.

I've discussed a weekly review for a long time in this podcast.

And yes, that is a GTD strategy.

And that's a really important part of this process.

And knows be you're capturing these ideas gives you the chance to review what has already taken place.

The completed tasks are also readily available.

So you can review what took place in the past.

And then finally, the fifth area of David Allen system is to engage with what's next.

In other words, asking the question, what's my next action?

What am I doing now?

And this is the priority tab that's right up front and knows be to help keep you focused on your next action, which is extremely valuable.

So in a nutshell, that's why David Allen system is kind of why it's so important, and also how it's built into knows be itself.

Now the third reason why I love knows be ultimately is its simplicity.

And I'll use a counter example of this you probably are familiar with, which is the app notion.

I could also include Evernote in this, but notions, the biggie notions very popular right now.

It has been the last couple of years and I find notion to be obnoxious.

Is that a word I can say here?

I can.

It is.

I don't like it.

I've never liked notion and I've never liked it because it's got way too much going on.

You don't want to be confused in your own system.

You don't want to be lost in your own data.

If you don't have simplicity, you're not going to do the thing.

Confusion leads to opting out.

If you are confused by your own system, your system is going to fail you.

And so knows be is awesome because it keeps things very straightforward.

Now you still have to do the work to organize what's there.

It's your life or your projects or your tasks, but the core layout of the app is easy to follow.

It's also very fast to learn.

You can literally start using it today and understand the basic principles and about an hour or two and be up and running and have your whole life added to it.

It doesn't take a long time.

And then once you're in, you're good to go.

Now let's break down the key sections of nose.

These are the things you'll see in the app listed in the left hand side.

So you can see the basic core functions of this app.

The very first thing is the priority list.

What's due right now.

These are starred items in the app.

These are things you can star from any given project at any given time.

And so this is our cross project list, right?

No matter where these things are listed, if it's starred, it winds up in this list and you can see what to do right now.

My goal in any given day is to work through this list.

This is where I live every day.

I am looking at this priority list and doing those items.

If it's not due today, I will reschedule it.

If it was a bad idea, I delete it.

If it's a good idea, I act on it immediately.

This is the list where everything gets filtered, where everything is processed.

Second key area is the inbox itself, the dumping ground for new ideas.

And so technically things that land in the inbox are not due today.

They might be, and maybe you will star that item to make sure it gets done that day.

But for the most part, an inbox is going to be a place where you just have a bunch of new ideas that then need to be filtered and processed and reorganized for later.

The third area would be your list of projects.

This is your chance to have an organizational structure to the key areas of your life and work and basically organized tasks and similar batched items.

Very standard project list that keeps these items all together where they belong.

Now we'll say this is not a folder based system.

This is not like a Google drive or a computer hardware system.

This is just what the software will say.

Here's a project name and a variety of tasks that are all related to that same category.

But speaking of the next area is called categories, which technically categories are different from projects because the categories allow things to be in different projects at the same time.

And you can therefore clarify a lot of different kind of overlapping capacities here.

Like a Venn diagram, these circles are overlapping.

The categories give you the chance to clarify things with a lot of flexibility because you get to decide whatever categories you want.

There are none by default.

You build them and then you can organize things if you want to.

I will say that for years I never touched the categories area.

Didn't use it.

Didn't care about it.

It didn't matter to me.

Recently I have used a lot of it and it's fantastic, but you don't have to.

A huge part of this is the flexibility to opt into the pieces that you understand, that you like, that you get value from and ignore the rest.

So you want to ignore categories for now, go right ahead.

If you want to get really detailed, you also have that chance.

The next area is the calendar.

Now the calendar in Nozbe has a limited functionality for a reason.

It's not designed to replace your standard calendar.

It is designed for you to get a high level view of the tasks that you have in Nozbe and that's it.

So it's not event based.

It's not time based.

It's just a way for you to see on a given date coming up, what kinds of tasks do I have set aside for that date, including the ones that are recurring, right?

The reminders that you'll get on a daily basis.

Those will also be listed there.

So you get a really good sense of the things you have scheduled for yourself, a task wise in the calendar in Nozbe.

The next area are your comments.

This is your chance to leave notes for yourself or to dig deep into a task and provide lots of additional detail.

This could include links, YouTube videos, file attachments from your computer, of course, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive file links, additional checklists, lots of options here for your comments to include whatever you want to drop in and remind yourself of and have more detail of.

You can put all of that right there in the comments area for any given task you have for yourself.

Honestly, most of the detail that I have all lives here.

A lot of my clarifications for myself lives here.

And then I can decide from there what to do about the task because of what I leave in my comments.

The next area are the templates.

And this is something I have spent very little time with.

I don't personally have a need for it, but you might with the work that you do.

In the templates area, you can create projects that are pre-populated with tasks, which is really great for recurring projects.

So for example, let's say you have a health and wellness project like train for a marathon and you've built a template to do so.

Well, you might have a template there.

So the next time that you run a marathon, you just copy and paste that template for that project and it makes a new one and you start from scratch yet again and go through your list.

So it's a great way to clone different things or copy different projects and have a pre-populated template that's ready to go.

And the final area is your search category, which I use all the time.

With the search area, you can find any task in your system based on the keyword you're looking for.

So I frequently forget what I have written down for myself and I use the search area to find my tasks right away, which is very, very handy.

So that's the high level overview of what the app provides.

Now the fourth and final reason why I love Nozbe and believe you should too, is that there are two different versions of Nozbe.

Oh yeah.

One of them is the kind of old school version that I have used since day one, which is now called Nozbe Personal.

It is designed for individuals, people like me who tend to work alone and organize yourself in your own little bubble.

The comparison is their newer product called Nozbe Teams, which of course is built for teams, and it's especially great for delegating tasks.

So if you work on a small team or even possibly a larger team and you want to have the ability to have organization among you and all of your colleagues, you can delegate tasks to various people and all use these same systems, both even more bells and whistles.

What I've discussed today in this episode is Nozbe Personal for individuals.

This is not a deep dive into the team's functionality.

It's a whole separate thing we can get to later, but just know that if you want to use this same kind of philosophical, getting things done component here, you can do all of that by yourself or with your team.

Okay, now let's get to what I think is probably the best part of this entire conversation, which is how I use Nozbe every day.

The real nuts and bolts of getting things done, but with a real world example, which is me in this case.

So the very first key thing about this, I mentioned earlier is that this is a digital system.

So number one is that paperless is really important here.

There is only one thing in my life that is, that uses paper on a daily basis, which is Tessa and I shared grocery shopping list.

It's the only thing we have not digitized.

We've tried various apps for it, but we just keep coming back to the paper solution, which is fine.

We've got a good job done for us and we have no problem with it, but literally that's the only thing in my life I use pen and paper for anymore.

Everything else is digital, always digital.

And so for me, Nozbe is everywhere I go.

It's on my iPhone.

It's on both of my Macs.

It's on all the web browsers I could log into anywhere I go.

So for me, the accessibility of Nozbe is essential and the paperless components is just how I live my life.

Everything is digital, so that's what I go to.

The second key thing for me using Nozbe every day is this core GTD philosophy of emptying your brain, of capturing new ideas.

I cannot express how important this is.

If you were to pull out one component for this episode this week that matters, it is this one.

You need a solution where you can dump new ideas and never lose them.

You need a capturing system for all of your new ideas.

And when you have that, and then you have a follow-up solution to process those ideas and guarantee they wind up where they're supposed to go, well then every single new idea you get has the potential to not be forgotten.

Now you may say, "Well, Jeff, I get way too many ideas and most of them are stupid."

Okay, fine.

If that's, believe me, I know what that means.

I use that as an example because that's how I feel a lot.

Well what I do is I write down the good ideas and I put them into Nozbe and then I just filter them later.

And if the idea is still not worth keeping, then I delete it.

But if it is worth keeping, then I have a few options.

The first is that I could act on that idea right away, get it done, check it off the list, move on.

The second possibility is I could schedule that good idea in Nozbe as a future task.

This is the most common thing I do.

So I get an idea, it lands in the inbox.

I then process the inbox and I'll take a task and say, "Okay, I like the idea.

I'm going to do it next Tuesday."

So I'll schedule it in Nozbe for next Tuesday.

I'll add a category to it.

I'll put a reminder on it.

I'll add some comments to it.

I beef out the idea with a little more detail.

And then I schedule it and I move on to the next one.

That's the most common thing I do every day is take a new idea, put it in the inbox, and then process that information to guarantee I don't forget it and it's scheduled on the appropriate date.

Now the next option you have with a new idea that pops up, if you could convert the idea to a calendar event, so you may say, "Well, the idea that I have is actually, it should live on my calendar, not in Nozbe at all."

Okay, great.

Then we convert that idea to the calendar and delete it then from Nozbe because it belongs in that one location, not both.

Which of course the same concept then if the idea you got belongs on a project list in a different app, right?

You transfer it to the right place and you then delete it from Nozbe.

The point here is to capture the idea somewhere.

And then once the idea is processed, the idea is gone because it's been put where it belongs.

This core concept is what productivity looks like in the real world.

This is the best example of here's a new thought, it gets captured, it's never forgotten, it's in the cloud, it's saved forever.

I process that concept, I then put it where it belongs, and then I can forget about it.

My brain is now empty, I don't need to remember it, I don't need to think about it, it's just scheduled and now my brain is free for creative thought.

This is it.

This concept I just described is the basis of how my brain operates every day, how the best kind of productivity gets done is this exact process, especially when it comes to new information and new ideas.

New things come in, they get processed, and then they're gone.

If you get really good at this, the skill here is critical, if you get really good at this, you are going to be so good at getting things done.

So good.

All right, the third area for how I use Nozbe every day is I actually work out of this app, out of the Nozbe app, between my calendar events.

So if you think of your day as the calendar kind of dictates where you are and for how long, well then when you get to a certain event on your calendar, you're going to do whatever that thing is.

Maybe it's a meeting, maybe it's going to the gym, and then between those events on your calendar, that's when you execute on the tasks that are in your task manager.

So generally speaking, the tasks in Nozbe for me are very small, and then my scheduled time-based events on my calendar are very large.

And there tends to be no overlap whatsoever between these two areas.

So if you look at my calendar right now, for this week for example, and then look at my tasks in Nozbe, they're all different.

They're not the same thing duplicated in two different places.

Which means that for every new idea you get about productivity, it belongs somewhere in a discrete location.

It's either a calendar event, or a task to complete, or an idea for later.

That's basically it.

There really are very few other possibilities.

And so because of that, it gives you the chance to discreetly filter where things go.

And in the name of productivity, and organization, and simplicity, and clarity, and peace of mind with your to-do list, putting something where it goes is 90% of the battle.

This is so, so important.

It's why I keep harping on this.

Because this is it.

This is the core of all of it.

Now the fourth area for how I use Nozbe every day is reminders.

I love reminders.

I've just talked a lot about not wanting to remember certain tasks, and being able to forget about those things, and use my brain for creativity.

Well the core of that, the underlying assumption there, is that my system will remind me of what matters when the time is right.

And I will tell you this firsthand, the largest value I get from Nozbe are the reminders.

The largest value I get is that when next Thursday shows up, and I wake up, I go see my computer, I look at my phone, what's the task for today?

Well Nozbe, on the priority list, will show me the things I had scheduled for that day.

They pop right up, and they get starred automatically for any items that were scheduled for today.

Which means I get reminders for things that are due today, every morning I wake up.

It's right there.

So I can't forget about them unless I literally never look at the app.

And let me pause here for a second and acknowledge that one.

I gave a speech many years ago to a crowd where I was talking about this concept of task managers and to-do lists and various apps.

And one person had a question that I thought was so true about so many of us, which is that she had a to-do list app that she rarely looked at.

She used it on occasion, but it wasn't important enough to look at every day.

It wasn't baked into her system.

It wasn't part of her routine.

It wasn't so valuable that she had to look at it.

And so what happened?

Well, the ideas are written down and then forgotten about, never acted on.

Nothing happened.

It just sat there for years in some cases.

And so the key to all of this is that whatever app you choose, whether it's Nozbe, Asana, whatever the case is, whatever app you choose, commit to that app, dig in, like put your heels into it.

This is what you're going to reference every day.

I just said that, you know, I'll get out of bed at 5am and what do I do right away?

I look at my task list for the day.

What am I doing today?

Which means the very first thing I do is I look at my calendar and I look at Nozbe because that tells me what the day is going to look like.

And so you want to choose apps that are your go-to solutions.

Like this is it.

I have chosen it.

This is where everything lives.

All my projects, all my tasks, my whole life.

And because of it, because it's so important, you just do it.

You're not going to forget about it.

You're not going to not use it because then you would never do anything.

This is your life.

It's been put here for a reason.

So use it, leverage it and get all the value you can from it.

All right.

The fifth way I use Nozbe every day is the combination of Nozbe with my Google Docs system.

So years ago in this podcast, I raved about Evernote and then Evernote made me mad and I quit using Evernote and I switched a while to Devon Think, which was good, but not great for me.

I then recently, about a year and a half ago, made the switch to Google as my primary solution for all of my file management and project management.

So all of the Google Docs, Google Sheets, all of those important documents for me, they live in the Google Drive system to organize them.

And then I have a basically a companion solution between Google Docs and Nozbe.

And what that means is, is that let's say I have a reminder in Nozbe to work on a certain document.

Well, they'll just link to that document from Google Docs in the Nozbe task itself, which means when that day pops up, I need to work on that document.

The reminder from Nozbe is right there with the link I need to that exact document.

So as long as I built an intelligent reminder, what I need is available right there, right in front of me.

Like I have, there's no work for me to do besides to execute on the task.

The reminder is set, the link is there, the Google Doc is already there, or whatever else I attach to that task, a PDF file, a video on YouTube, whatever it is, it's right there.

So this, you know, this integration from your task manager to your other systems is going to be very helpful to smooth out those potential obstacles that may happen when you're trying to use a variety of tools that don't play well together.

Well, a system like Google Docs, for example, where you have a link to something is very handy in a digital solution like Nozbe.

All right, the sixth and final way that I use Nozbe every day, let's go back to that categories discussion.

I said before that for years I didn't use categories very often, and now I use them all the time.

Well, my categories that I created about two, maybe three years ago, have three areas, red, orange, and blue.

Red are things that are due today, orange are things that are important and they're due soon but not today, and then blue is my quadrant two or Q2 items that are not due ever, or maybe a long time from now.

In other words, the categories are a way to organize the urgency and importance of a given task.

So let's go back to that priority list, which is the starred list, the thing you're working out of in Nozbe every day, the reminders, they're all right there.

Well, I have color-coded those items.

So let's say I have 10 things to do today.

A few of those will have a red circle next to it, a red category identifier.

So I know right away those red items are absolutely due today and I must get them done.

I'll have some that are orange, which means I really want to work on those today, but technically I could procrastinate if I had to, but I don't want to.

And the third are the blue items, which are definitely forgettable.

If I get to them tomorrow or next week or next month, it's totally fine.

And so the color coding of the categories allows me to very quickly see what matters, what doesn't, and why, which then gives me the clarity of what to do first and second and third and fourth.

I just know.

And so I look at the list, I might reorganize it a few times to get it just right for the day, and then off I go and I'm knocking out tasks one by one.

And that's how I live every single day.

It's how I get stuff done is I see this priority list that's color-coded, that's got what I need that day with the right links, with the right reminders and bam, I get it done.

That's my life in a nutshell.

If you want to know how I get things done every day, this is what it looks like.

This is the nuts and bolts of me on a daily basis.

There's probably more questions that I've not answered that you might have.

So if you want to email me, Jeff@jeffsanders.com, I'd be happy to give you a little more context via email, or I can discuss more of these details further on the podcast to break down a more about how my system actually works.

But at a high level, what I really want to focus on here is that the detail of this episode this week doesn't matter.

The detail is just negotiable.

These things change over time, what things are called and how they integrate.

Those things change constantly.

The important part is that you make a decision about how you want to operate.

You choose the tools that align to the way you think, and you double down on those tools and you get the most value you can from them because they are who you are.

They are how you think.

And maybe your marriage is going to be based on these tools.

I don't know.

But I can tell you right now that if Tessa sends me a task in Nozbe, I'm going to act on it.

I'm going to get it done.

It happened yesterday.

It'll happen again soon.

I guarantee it.

It's just part of how we operate now because we have tools we trust.

We have solutions that matter.

So find your tools, double down on them, and get some stuff done.

And for the action step this week, yes, go all in on your preferred task manager.

Of course, you do not have to use the same tools that I do, but it's in your best interest to go deep with the tools you commit to long term.

There is very little value in using a task manager if you're not going to give it the chance to flex its muscles.

So put every task and every project in your system, use it every day, and see how it changes just about everything about how you get things done.

You can sign up for Nozbe for individuals or teams at jeffsanders.com/getnozbe.

Of course, subscribe to this podcast and your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

And that's all I've got for you here on The 5 AM Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

---

© 5 AM Miracle Media, LLC