Getting The Right Things Done

A simple productivity system that works

Working at a cafe in Pichilemu, Chile after a surf sesh in March 2019.

The key idea behind Fewer Better Things is to design a simple and sustainable lifestyle on your own terms, away from hierarchical and industrial age monotonous and uncreative thinking and design.

There are, from my perspective, three simple components:

Self-management – taking full responsibility and accountability for one’s life and development

Well-being – the state of being healthy, fulfilled, happy, and self-realized

Sustainability – shifting to a circular economy with less waste and better quality things

If you don’t run your daily schedule, your daily schedule will run you. So designing a system where you can get the right stuff done [for you] is critical to mastering self-management, the hard and lonely management of oneself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a freelancer or work for a corporation, leaving this to someone else is to surrender your autonomy and thus diverting from the goal of living on your own terms, the true quest in life: personal freedom.

I’ve adopted a simple system called The 3-3-3 Method which is a mashup of several other Getting Things Done systems. I like it cause it’s simple and creates clear boundaries around and effective focus on work output.