The real LPT should probably be to ease off our reliance on Google, whether that be by getting another email account, paid cloud storage, etc.

I recently started using an app called Habitica that gamifies your to do list and goddamn has it had a huge effect on my productivity. I highly recommend it if you haven't given it a shot.

It's been months, it should have changed by now. Seems purposeful on their end.

Sometimes there's a delay in that bar changing. But I agree it seems like it should change more than it does.

This is bad advice all the way around.

>Meaning your refund is paid to you over 12 months instead of Feb-Apr the year after.

No, it means you won't overpay and therefore won't get a refund.

Also, if you DO rely on your refund to pay credit cards, you have poor money management skills and are better off not cutting off the refund. It's an interest-free savings plan, but at least you're saving it, even if it's forced. You'll still run up the same credit card debt because you refuse to live within your means, but now have no windfall to pay off the debt.

That's a great idea, I was unaware!

You could also download all your emails with the tool Google has before you delete them from Gmail. That way, if you really need something you have a copy. It's just not hosted by then anymore

Tomorrow, 9am: Learn how to spell "likelihood" 😄

this is why I use google tasks and the google calendar itegration

Just have to make it work for you. Hard to separate from using it at work though Im sure.

You'll pry that oil change receipt from 2009 out of my cold dead hands.

This is a excellent life pro tip. This suggestion helped me to keep my family and business interactions and appointments in line. Never forgetting a birthday or a appointment, even small task such as washing clothes or repairing something around the house was easy to remember and to complete in a timely manner.

I do the same thing but also make the "event" repeat daily until I delete it.

I just said fuck it and use my Google Opinion Rewards to pay the monthly; finally have a use for the drip-fed $0.XX they pay you.

I've found it only works as sub-sets of time.

Getting a random alert to do something? Fuck it.

But if I put 2 hours for "focus time" and then put a couple smaller 15 chunks in there for specific things - it works.

At least for me.

The #1 for me has been to be gracious with myself. Things don't have to be perfect, they have to be done. And as long as I'm making progress towards "done," I'm good.

This applies to cleaning in particular. Ex: if my end goal is "wipe the bathroom counter" but there's stuff on it preventing me from doing that, in the past the presence of that stuff would make the task feel too big and I'd put it off indefinitely. Now, my new goal might be "move that one bottle off the counter," which can easily be done after I wash my hands or when I'm walking by on the way to/from my closet.

Usually moving the one bottle overcomes my mental paralysis because, hey! Moving one bottle wasn't hard at all! I bet we can move two! And three! And four!

And just like that the counter gets cleared. And now my new goal is "wipe the empty counter," which I facilitate by keeping Clorox wipes on the counter so that I can snatch one and wipe everything in a few seconds.

Which brings me to the 2 minute rule, another thing that's helped me. If a task has no blockers (like bottles on a counter I want to clean) and it takes less than two minutes, I do it as soon as I think of it. Ex: making my bed in the morning. As soon as I notice that it's messy, I get up and make it, which only takes a minute or two.

Third has been structuring my environment in a way that facilitates success. For example, I hit a real slump in cooking, and I realized it was because I had a ton of ingredients/tools and it made me feel like I could never easily find things I needed. So I did a thorough pantry clean out, labeled all my ingredients/cabinets/drawers so I'd never have to stop and think about where something might be, and organized everything in a way that makes it quick and easy for me to grab while I'm cooking. I also committed to making simpler meals because I realized that I don't like hours-long cooking marathons. Those two things simplified my life so much that I actually look forward to cooking again.

So, in summation: be patient with yourself, follow the 2 minute rule, and set up your environment for your success.

I used Todoist app for something similar. Assign a day and usually a time as a "deadline"

Google said that I was running low on storage, so I deleted all old mail. It worked for a solid 3 weeks, then I reached 100%

Google said it was because of Google photos, so I deleted over 15.000 of them, and it didn't go down. AT ALL.

I have literally no idea on what to do lol

And also, if you sleep through a time band you had dedicated to a task, since it's not on a list, you just now don't have to do it anymore And will never think about it again. Bonus win!

Apple's Reminders app has changed my life. I add EVERYTHING I need to do as it comes to mind - to get it out of my mind (spoiler: this is the whole point of Getting Things Done - now you don't have to read it). You can sort by priority (low, medium, high or none) AND by date. So I can make things high priority, and say it must be done today - or high priority without a date. You can also add flags, create multiple lists, etc. It's by far the best list/to-do manager I've ever used. And it feels SO GOOD to delete tasks after you complete them...

Outlook + MS Todo has been working splendidly

Asana is amazing. I use it for work and love it. Would want to die if I had to use it in my personal life though.

Completely agree.

Fuck off Google, you promised me I would never have to delete an email again.

No. Gmail ignores all periods, not what comes after it (like it does for the +).

So goodboy.tools and goodboytools and g.oo.db.oy.t.ools are all the same to gmail.