Below are some questions that come up frequently, and might help you make more sense of the Today System.
If you have a question that’s not on here, feel free to email me, or hop onto our Discord Community and ask the question! Or, you can submit a question below, and I’ll get back to you with an answer.
Why an index card? Why not just a to-do list in a notebook or on an app?
I have 3 main reasons why I use a new index card every day, and I’m very passionate about them.
- It’s your best shot at avoiding distraction.
Even though social media and the internet in general get a bad rap for being sources of distraction, our own productivity systems can also be huge distractions. Planners, outlines, apps, and lists of projects and tasks can all distract you from what you should be doing now. The card is meant to be separate from all that other stuff. It is its own thing. It is today. Keep it separate, and watch your focus and motivation get magnified. - It’s a way to leverage the feeling of a fresh start.
The reason why it’s important to have a brand new card is the same reason that it feels so great to have a brand new planner at the beginning of the year. When the place where you are trying to figure out what you need to do today is the same place as your leftover junk from yesterday and the weeks before, your mind knows this. But when your mind sees a fresh, new, separate blank piece of paper, it’s given permission to take things on with a fresh new attitude. Do not refuse to take advantage of this. A fresh card works in the same way that a fresh notebook or planner works. It just does this every single day. - It’s portable and concrete.
The fact that you can feel the card and carry it with you makes what you’ve put on it all the more real. It becomes a talisman for doing your best today. The card you’re carrying with you is the best you can do today. Everything else is icing on the cake.
Do I have to go to higher levels? Can I just make a card each day?
No, you don’t have to go to the higher levels. You can stay at Level 1 and fill out a daily card for as long as it works for you. But when it doesn’t work as well, Levels 2 and beyond might be a huge help.
I love a good master productivity system as much as the next desk jockey, but I also recognize a brutal truth. The people who need a productivity system the most are often those who are least likely to succeed using a grand unified productivity system. It’s too much, too soon. They still haven’t learned how to feel good about today. That’s what the card offers.
You can be successful using only a card each day because it serves to focus and motivate you to put down in writing what’s important to do today, and makes it fun to push yourself to get it done today. That alone is worthwhile.
What should go on the front of the card?
Great question. This is where there is a lot of room for making the system your own.
My answer is this: whatever makes it easiest for you to look at the card and be ready to start doing item #1 on it. As I do for many things, I’ll defer to the great David Allen, and suggest you list the next physical action step that will move things forward on the important thing that made you want to put that action on the card. But I realize that such actions may only take a minute.
But, just because an action only takes a minute doesn’t mean that it doesn’t yield great value down the line. It also doesn’t meant that it isn’ timportant. So be aware of that. But there are some big actions that take a few steps, and you want to capture them as something shorter under 1 item on a card. My suggesiton is to use the first action that will get the ball rolling, and let the momentum of getting that done carry you.
You could also use commas, write small, and sneak 3 related actions onto one line. It all depends on how you think, how you work, and your emotional state for that day.
Why only 9 items?
Partly because that’s the amount of lines on the index card. But also because I think there’s power in trying to do fewer things, but the kinds of things that yield a higher return. To that end, stay within the constraints of the system until you’re quite sure they no longer apply to you.
Are there days where you get more than 9 things done? Yes. Are more than 9 of those things the type of things that are really important and you have to really push yourself to get them done? I think that’s highly unusual.
By and large, the items on the card are going to be the kind that take some significant time and energy for you to do. Again, the card isn’t for everything you might do today, it’s just the things that, if you do them, you can feel really good about today. And usually, those things are time, labor, and emotionally intensive.
How many items should I put on my card?
There’s no easy answer to this question. A good rule of thumb is this: take the amount of hours you have free to work on these things today, multiply it by 1.25, and that’s about the number of items to put on your list. This way, you have buffer time for things that drop-in (and they will), and you don’t put yourself under a bunch of undue stress.
Can I integrate something like timeblocking into the card?
Yes! I do this frequently. It’s hard to know sometimes just how long a task will take, so I commit to putting in a solid hour or 90 minutes of work on something. That becomes an item on the card. It’s helped me move forward on many projects where I usually would have procrastinated.
Can I use the Today Card while using another productivity system (GTD, Bullet Journal, etc.)?
Absolutely. The card can be plugged into any existing productivity system, as a way to clarify what you should do today, and keep you focused and motivated on it.
In fact, there’s a blog post that deals with integrating The Today System into the Bullet Journal Method!