The daily capture
By the end of any day, every loose thing from that day is in the Inbox file in your own words, and it took under ten minutes.
None. A computer you own. (The folder and the Inbox file from the old unit 1 are step 1 here; unit 1 is now the build.)
The capture habit and the prompt that sorts the day's file into what needs you, what needs somebody else, and what needs nothing.
The exercise
- Make one folder you own, on a machine you own. Put one file in it called
Inbox.md. That is the whole build for today; nothing else gets installed. - All day, everything new goes in that file first. One line, today's date, your own words. Phone, desk, car by voice: same file. If something landed somewhere else first, it goes in the file the moment you see it.
- Open the daily capture prompt. Answer the questions on that page (where the file lives, the words that start the sort, the most you want to see, who else is on the team). Copy it.
- At the end of the day, say the words. Read the three piles: needs you, needs somebody else, needs nothing. Answer the yes-or-no lines. Hand the second pile to whoever is named on it. Never let it act on a line; the sort is a reading.
- Post one sorted day in the room, in #courses, names blacked out if you like. That is the checkpoint. Bring the one line that keeps coming back to Friday at noon.
Capturing into a form. The day you make yourself fill in fields, you stop capturing. Plain words, dated, one line each.
Do it with somebody
Pair up: swap one sorted day with each other on Friday and each name one line the other person put in 'needs me' that a person or a system could have taken. That is the pile that should be shortest, and a second pair of eyes finds what you are still carrying.
The free Friday session: bring the one line that keeps coming back.
Free Friday session, Friday, September 25 at 12:00 PM ET · The One Task workshop, Thursday, September 24 at 12:00 PM ET