If there’s one term that perfectly describes most of my life, it’s organized chaos. I’ve always been the kind of person who needs a million things going on in her life at the same time in order to stay focused. Ultimately, I do as much as I realistically can at any given time, and the only way to end up in pure chaos (and lose the organized element entirely) is to have some systems in place. I have practically tried it every productivity program you’ve heard of. Notion, Obsidian, Todoist, Structured, Tana, Google Keep, I can’t even remember the names of a few others.
I download each program with the same optimism, thinking that this is the one. I tell myself this is different and this is the program that will finally bring my whole life together and make me the organized person I want to be. Every once in a while, I build a perfect build over the course of a weekend, use it religiously for about ten days, and then quietly let it die. A few weeks ago I ditched all my apps just for my calendar. It turned out to be the only productivity system that actually stuck.
Almost all the systems I used before had the same problem
Each application was one more thing to check
The problem with every system I’ve dealt with before was that there was too much friction. Every the system will spread between different programsand not least, various tools. For example, I use Notion to manage everything. I have to go to the Comprehension Calendar to see my schedule, then go back to mark the assignment, then open a separate page for notes. Every pass was a little friction bump and every stroke gave me another excuse not to worry. In the end, he won without bothering. Practically every system I’ve used has ended up like this.
It worked until it didn’t, and before I knew it, I was just running on vibes until the next deadline hit me and reminded me why I downloaded the app in the first place. Then the guilt would kick in, I’d go back on it, and the whole cycle would start again a few weeks later with a shiny new program. In the end, I realized that friction was the biggest problem here, rather than the apps I installed. As good as the tool is, if using it meant jumping between three different surfaces to capture a single thought, I always I will finally lose the fight against my own laziness. The number of programs I was juggling at any given time was a problem. So I thought, why not reduce the number of applications to one?
My calendar was an app I never had to remember
The best app is the one you never close
Given that I only wanted to use one app, it had to be one that I was guaranteed to open without forcing myself. It had to be an app I was used to opening out of habit, not out of order. This immediately ruled out every dedicated productivity tool, because the whole problem with them is that unlocking them is essentially optional. You must remember and decide to register.
My schedule was different. I already open it dozens of times a day without even thinking, just to answer the most important question: what should I do right now? As someone who blocks out every second of their calendar (yes, I’m one of those people), I was already living in it from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. Every hour of my day was already an event. This meant that adding my tasks and notes to it wasn’t a new habit I had to build. Instead, I was putting more information where I was already looking.
Installation is simpler than you might think
You always have these features
The whole attraction of this system is that there is almost no installation to leave. Perfect database to build, templates to download, nothing to install. In my case, I’ve always been a Google Calendar user and just had to start using the features that were sitting in front of me.
Tasks are the simplest of them all, as Google Tasks are built directly into Google Calendar. You can find it under the icon in the sidebar, or you can click on any free time slot and switch the entry from “Event” to “Task” before saving. That’s the whole setup. Any tasks you create appear next to your events, sitting at the day and time you set them, so they’re impossible to miss when you’re already looking at your schedule.
Uncompleted tasks automatically roll over to the next day, which is something I’ve always appreciated about Google Tasks. This has helped me more than I’d like to admit because it means that a task I missed quietly disappears as a skipped event. It continues to follow me the next day and the day after that taps me on the shoulder that I’m either really doing it or I’m making a conscious decision that it doesn’t matter anymore.
Given that this functionality is completely tied to Google Tasks, everything I add syncs directly to the Google Tasks app and shows up in Gmail, Drive, and my phone. I create tasks in the calendar, but they are not stuck there! The same list follows me everywhere Google does.
The next thing is to celebrate! Every event or task you create has a description field attached to it, and most people never write a word there. This field is what makes my calendar a note-taking app. For example, if I have limited time to prepare for an interview, I will throw everything necessary directly into the event itself. My prep notes, questions I want to ask, links I need to open, all go into that description box! Then, during and after the interview, my packages go to the same place.
Similarly, if I have time to write a particular article, the description area becomes home to everything I need for the piece: my outline, the angle I’m going for, links to sources, loose sentences I don’t want to lose, even title ideas I’m still deciding on! When I actually sit down at that pad, I’m not looking at a blank page wondering where I put my notes.
Color coding, as obvious as it may seem, is another reason why the system works so well. While many people color-code it, using it intentionally is a great way to read through your entire week at a glance. Instead of assigning a few random aesthetic colors to each event, I assign each color a fixed meaning and then stick to it religiously. For example, my university’s colors are blue, so all university-related tasks are coded in blue. Any time I will spend there and work tangentially related to the university will be coded in blue.
I write between MUO and XDA. The former’s colors are red and black, while XDA’s colors are purple. So everything I write for XDA turns purple, while MUO’s work gets red. The second I open my calendar, I can tell exactly how much work I have for each publication and how much of my time will be spent on university-related work, without reading any event titles. If it’s a purple wall, I know XDA is eating my week. If blue is creeping in everywhere, I know that the coursework will require more of me than I planned. Colors make me think, so I can see through an overloaded week without turning into a panic, not after 2am.
This system works so well because of how simple it is
The only reason this system works so effectively is because I’m not constantly jumping out of the program to keep it running. My tasks, notes, schedule, and insight into where my week is going all live in one place!
Best of all, this system is completely free to set up and run. There’s no premium tier that I’ll eventually hit, no subscription that renews quietly in the background, and no paywall between me and the features that really matter. Everything I’ve described is built right into Google Calendar and Google Tasks, both of which come free with any Google account.
