A Macbook and an iPhone sitting on a wooden desk lit by a table lamp

I use three of my favorite apps to create a daily digital checklist that I run through in the last hour of the day before bed. I have a template in Drafts containing the items I want to do regulalrly. I use a Keyboard Maestro Macro to automatically create a new list every day in Things 3, my task management app.

Email

I have three email accounts:

  1. A personal Gmail account
  2. A work account in Outlook
  3. A Yahoo email account just for newsletters

I have a checkbox for each of these accounts and strive to reach Inbox Zero each night. I get behind on newsletters at a times, that being my lowest priority. I also have a checkbox to make sure I’ve downloaded any attached files to Google Drive.

Drafts

I use Drafts for iOS as my quick capture tool for all text. In the evening, I look at what I’ve captured that day and route it to the appropriate app. Notes go to Obsidain Quotes for my ever-growing collection go to Thoughts. I sometimes have new todo items for Things or calendar events for Fantastical.

Things 3

I go through Things and make sure I’ve checked off everything I accomplished that day. I take a minute to add anything I might want to get done tomorrow that I have not already added.

Obsidian

I clear out any notes I’ve saved in my Obsidian inbox, adding any tags or backlinks that I need. If it’s something I want to read later, I bookmark it - because I have a weekly task to read my bookmarked notes. I also have an Obsidian folder where emails arrive whenI send them via an IFTTT action. I clear that daily too. I make sure that any Omnivore highlights, notes or articles are properly tagged and that the metadata matches my preferred format. The last step is making sure I’ve completed my daily note. I add to it throughout the day as a journal, but at night I like to reflect a bit and add what I’m grateful for that day.

Updates

I have nearly 400 apps installed on my MacBook and an equivalent number on my iPhone. I run two Mac apps nightly to check for updates, Mac Updater and Latest. It only takes a couple of minutes, and it saves me from having marathon sessions of updates if I keep putting it off. The other thing I update is Trakt, a media tracking service that allows me to keep a record of my viewing habits.

Following this plan, making it an integral part of my evening routine helps me stay on top of the things that are important to me. The systems I have in place function smoothly because of this checklist. It’s an evolving habit and I add and remove items as I need to.