 I guess I'm one of the most organized people that I know. I have been practicing various ways of organizing my information and tasks for probably 25 years. And back in the mid-2000s, I was greatly influenced by a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. Some of you may have read the book or I've heard of it. And since then I've customized or further evolved that system to something that works better for me. And I'm gonna share that system with you in this video in hopes that you'll find something useful from it. You might customize my system or try it completely on its own and see if it works for you. Okay, so the system is simple. It's called Catcher Categorize Calendar. So it's nice, it's only three words and it's all starts with C. And I'll explain each part of the system but I just wanna let you know I have been using Catcher Categorize Calendar for more than 10 years. So it has built me a successful business. I use it in my personal life as well to maintain good health, to have clarity of mind, to have a good relationship with my spouse, to just overall feel really organized every day and feel like nothing falls through the cracks. I am never overwhelmed. I, again, probably largely because of Catcher Categorize Calendar and using it religiously, it just works really well for all kinds of things. So here's how the system works. The first step is to capture. Capture means any ideas that come to you that you might wanna do something about, any suggestions from other people, anything you read online, like, oh, I wanna remember that, you stop trying to remember it in your own head because our brains have not been built for memorizing things. Yes, you could. Of course, there are people who are known to memorize things very successfully but our brains are naturally gifted at pattern recognition. We're better at that than most computers. Our brains are gifted at relating, relating to other people. Our brains are gifted at improvisation and creating things and intuition and the sixth sense and all that good stuff. But when it comes to remembering data, remembering details, our brains are quite stressed in doing that and we have to use all kinds of tricks and tips to try to remember things and we have to work on it and it's versus just improvisation or creativity is more natural for us and we can go a lot farther, most people can go a lot farther with those things than becoming some genius at memorizing things which is why do you need to memorize things when you have devices that help you to remember much more than your brain could hold? So, and the famous example was Albert Einstein didn't even remember his own phone number when a journalist asked him for his phone number. He said, oh, let me find, and this was back before email and before cell phones and before nowadays very few of us remember our phone numbers but back in Albert Einstein's day everyone remembered their phone number, try to memorize it. He had to go look it up, his phone number. It's like, oh, give me a moment. I'm gonna look up my phone number. So why? Because Albert Einstein knew that his brain was much better for thinking, of solving problems for creativity, for pattern recognition, that kind of stuff. So why are you remembering your own, well, phone numbers are fairly easy to remember and it's easy, but it's like, don't remember anything else besides your email address and your phone number and your family member's names, okay? Everything, like don't remember people's birthdays, put it on a calendar, let it recur on a yearly basis. I don't remember birthdays. I just let it recur birthdays as a whole subject. I don't actually wish people happy birthdays. So I apologize if you're a friend and I never wish you a happy birthday. That's intentional. I don't wish anybody happy birthday except for my wife and my parents and my siblings. That's it. Nobody else gets a birthday wish from me. That's just my rule. And if you don't like me for that, I'm sorry. Then you can move on and like other people, that's okay too. So it's like, that's not my strength. That's not gonna be something that I'm known for. Oh, that guy always wished me a happy birthday. No, I don't do that. That's a separate topic. So capture is to basically don't use your brain to remember stuff. Everything should be written down. Everything should be written down. My system of capture is Todoist, T-O-D-O-I-S-T.com. That's an app. I use it multiple times a day to just write down, oh, I have an idea. I wanna improve my business in this way. Oh, I have a marketing idea. Oh, I gotta remember to follow up with someone. Whatever it is that comes to me, okay? In my brain, it comes to me. I write it down immediately on my Todoist app. I put it in the today folder. My today category is kind of a running list of ideas that came to me today, okay? So that's, or things that are due today. Either things that are due today or things that I just thought of today. So capture, and you might do, before I had a phone, I did this on my, I did this on like a notepad, you know, with a little pencil. I carried around with me everywhere I go and I always write, and people always thought I was weird. This is before smartphones. People thought I was weird. I was flipped something out and try to write things down. Well, people don't think that's weird anymore because people do that all the time now with a smartphone, right? So I was weird when I started doing this more than 20 years ago. So capture is, I religiously capture, even in the shower, I capture things. If I have an idea come to me, I don't try to remember it. I write it down on an aqua note. You should look it up, Google aqua notes. It's something you, it's 20 bucks or 10 bucks or whatever, 10 to $20. You stick it on your shower and then you can write notes, waterproof notes. So don't try, I don't try to remember anything. I just write it down, okay? Make that into a habit. That's why my brain is much more clear and I use it very efficiently for creating things, for solving problems, for intuition, for, okay. So capture is the first step. Make that into a habit. Never remember things, always write things down and write it down somewhere that's easy. You can quickly, quickly grab to write it down, write it in the same place, the same place, right? Not everywhere, don't capture it in a million posted notes. No wonder you're disorganized. You got to capture it in one place. So am I to do a step? It's my today category, it's all goes there, capture. Okay, step one. Step two is to categorize. Now that I've written down a bunch of ideas, if I'm just gonna let it, right? If I don't categorize it, it's just gonna keep piling up, right? Even if I have a single posted pad, if I write everything down, it's just gonna keep piling up and I'm not gonna remember what ideas I had and what was important and when I should action them. So you got to categorize your ideas once or twice a day. That's all you need. I do it in the morning, when I start my day, when I'm prioritizing my day, I look at my today category I'm going to do this and I will categorize, oh, okay. So this will go into marketing, this will go into client administration, this will go into personal items that I'm gonna take care of later today or whatever, I categorize them, okay? Categorize the ideas into various projects. And then the third step is calendar. You've got to calendar your projects so that nothing falls through the cracks, okay? If you capture your marketing ideas and then you categorize it into marketing, you capture ideas and you put it into, okay, here are my marketing ideas and if you don't calendar your marketing, you'll never do your marketing. Who has ever inspired to do their marketing? Not me, as I've written recently, I'm always uninspired, not always. I think 1% of my day I'm inspired. I know idea comes in, ooh, that's such a cool idea or someone, I'm working with a client. I feel inspired when I'm in conversation. I'm feeling more inspired now that I'm several minutes into making this video but I wasn't inspired in the beginning of this video. I just, I made it because it was time to make my video but then I let the action create inspiration, right? Action creates inspiration. Anyway, so calendar means the things that are, the categories that are important to you in your life. So categories could be marketing, client administration, could be home maintenance, it could be thoughts about improving your services to your clients, I call that service improvement. It could be an idea for an online course you wanna do, could be an idea for a book you wanna write, could be ideas for movies you wanna watch, I don't know, whatever, ideas and you need to have categories for your ideas, okay? And each category needs to have a place in your calendar. That's why nothing slips through the cracks for me. Everything that's important has a place on my calendar, okay? I make sure I do my marketing, I make sure I do my videos, I make sure I do my writing, I make sure I do my client administration, I make sure I do, you know, watch the movies I wanna watch, I make sure I do my home maintenance. Everything has a place on my calendar, okay? And no, it's not a boring life. It's, my life is wonderful because I do the things that I wanna do. The things that are important to me are on my calendar at the right time and I get to do them. And of course, yes, I have also have blank times on my calendar like Friday nights or evenings are blank and you know, usually Saturdays, Sunday afternoon evenings are blanks, Saturday now I do work on Saturdays so because I enjoy it or I want to, it's important to me. I don't necessarily, I don't enjoy it, but I do it anyway. And once I do it, I learn to enjoy it. But Sunday afternoons, evenings, so anyway, my calendar is pretty structured and scheduled and that allows me to be creative. I've written about this, I've spoken about this elsewhere but there is a misunderstanding that being a free spirit means that you have nothing on your calendar. I feel like I'm a really free spirit. I'm a very carefree person. I don't worry much, I don't worry barely at all. I get to be creative a lot in my life and in my work. I determined my own schedule. So I'm a very free spirit and I'm a rebel as well. I rebel, you know what I rebel? I rebel against lack of structure, I guess. I rebel against my self-doubt. I rebel against, so it's like, you gotta rebel against the right things. If you're a bell against structure, you're just hurting yourself. You're a bell against scheduling things that are important to you, you're just hurting yourself. You gotta rebel against the right thing, rebel against your self-doubt, rebel against your perfectionism, rebel against other people's demands on your life. That's what you should rebel against. People come to visit you, no, please don't visit me, okay? I'm rebelling against your wanting to visit me. Yes, okay, I truly, I don't have very many people visiting me because I say, oh, I'm just too busy, I'm sorry. Stayed in a nice way. Sorry family, you can't visit me. Or I'll visit you at the time that I wanna visit you. Or maybe once a year they can visit you, but when you visit you, schedule a vacation. Don't assume to be able to work during your in-laws or your family visiting you or your friends visiting you, you can't work. You gotta schedule like a vacation day or a vacation week when they're visiting. You just gotta have no work schedule at all, right? So you gotta rebel against the right things. Don't rebel against your own structure, right? So I'm a free spirit. I'm a rebel, I'm a creative rebel. I'm a creative free spirit. I just am free spirit about the right things. Rebel against the right things, not against your own structure. So capture, categorized calendar has been how I run my life and how I structure my ideas. If you have any questions, comment below. I'd love to answer it for you, but that's how I'm able to maintain such calm productivity and joyful productivity and nothing slips through the cracks. Nothing gets past me. Everything goes into capture. I should say everything important. I allow things to slip past me if it doesn't feel important. No worries, I don't care about that idea. I don't care about that suggestion someone made. No, it's not that important. Oh, the suggestion's important, great. I'm gonna capture it. I'm gonna categorize it next time. I improve that online course. I will look at these suggestions. Everything has a place, right? Capture, categorize calendar. Oh, I have a time that I spend to improve this online course next time. I have it in my calendar. So I will use it that time. I will use it to improve my online course. So nothing slips past me. Nothing important. I allow things that are not important to slip past me. But, and over time, as you practice capture, categorize calendar, you will learn what's important for you and what's not important and let that slip past you. No big deal. That's not important. Oh, it's important. Okay, let me write it down. Let me categorize it once or twice a day. You categorize it at the end of the day. You should definitely categorize everything on your today list. You should categorize it so that it goes into the right projects. It goes into the right folders and you remove the due date so that you don't have to keep having things overdue and then calendar everything. Calendar your project. Don't calendar your tasks. You have too many tasks. You can't just calendar your tasks and there's too many items on your calendar. You calendar your projects. Your projects. So it's like marketing. Okay, that's all my calendar for Tuesdays and Thursdays from this time to that time, for example. Okay, client administration, Mondays and Wednesdays, this time to that time, for example. And then when it comes time for those things on your calendar, you then look at your project folder. You then look at, okay, this is the time since marketing. Good, let me look at my marketing folder and then I can be a free spirit and figure out what I wanna do during my marketing time, okay? So be left brained about capture categorized calendar. And when it comes time to do that thing, show up for that thing you have on your calendar and then you can be a free spirit. Say, okay, what do I, what am I excited to do for my marketing today? What am I excited? Okay, it comes time to do your writing. Great. What am I excited to write about today? Great, write about that, okay? So know when to use your left brain, know when to use your right brain, know when to be your structure itself, know when to be a rebel, free spirit, creative self. Gotta know when to do these things. If you do these things in the right times, your life will flourish, your business will thrive because then you're using your mind correctly for certain times. Does that make sense? I hope this helps. And I'm gonna take a look now at whether or not there are any questions or comments I'm gonna look at again, please go ahead and comment below this video if you have ideas on how you wanna use the system now or any questions you have for me on how I'm using the system. So thanks, Daniel and captain for your comments here and thanks for joining me, Mary and Melanie, Kirsten, Lucinda, Linda, great to have end Cornelia, thank you so much. And captains, George, what's your response to those who say it takes a lot of time to organize these things and implement capture categorizing calendar? It does take time and for example, I spend about an hour and a half each day at the end of my day clearing everything. I clear all my tasks for today, I clear all my emails today at the end of each working day, my email is usually at zero most days and my to-do list is at zero. Have you ever, not captain, captain, I know you're a really organized guy, but for everybody, like have you ever had the experience or how often do you have the experience at the end of each day, you have no emails, you have nothing left to do, like you have a clear plate, like I want you to experience that more often. Honestly, it is a magical experience. You will just lift weight off your shoulders. It's really amazing. And so yes, it takes time. Of course it takes time. And in the beginning, you will need to take more time because you're figuring out how to use the system. But how else? I mean, so let me ask you, if you don't use the system, what's the alternative? Is the alternative to always be overwhelmed? I mean, I just look at some people and now when I first start working with clients, I'm like, are you just overwhelmed all the time? Yes, they are. It's like, when I first start working with someone, it's like they're overwhelmed all the time, like how do you live like that? I don't understand. No wonder I get so much more done in my business. It's like I'm never overwhelmed. I'm always calm because I have a system that I can trust that I've been using for 20 years now basically. It's like I have forgotten what it's like to be a normal person. Honestly, I've forgotten what it's like to not be calm and joyful all the time. I've just forgotten because most people, I guess, especially nowadays, most people, yeah, Lucinda, if you're in good company, most of my clients start like that. Like most people aren't like that. So if you learn the system, you will become superhuman. That's what happens or whatever system. It doesn't have to be my system. You can go read Getting Things Done. That's a very popular system or there are other organizational systems. I'm, you know, David Allen, Getting Things Done is one very popular one. My system capture categorized calendar, but I'm sure there are many other systems out there. I read another book years ago called From Order to Chaos, I believe it is. It's not a very popular book, but that's a good system too. So the bottom line is you got to find a system that when you apply it, creates calmness in your life where you're never overwhelmed, never ever overwhelmed. If you are more overwhelmed by information and tasks and, oh my God, I have so many things to do. If that's a normal part of your life, that's more, that's everybody. And you don't have to be that way. That's my point. If you implement a system, you will become superhuman and you will get more done than your peers will. And that's how people can achieve success in a very calm way. So listen to, I look forward to you trying this system or some other system. And I want to hear from you three months from now and say, George, my life is completely changed. So I would love to hear from you on that. Let's see, any other comments? Thank you, Mary, for your comment there and Cornelia. And I guess that's all the comments that I see for now. I look forward to your continued questions or updates on how this went. And until the next video, capture, categorize, calendar, go for it. It will become faster at it over time and it'll just create sort of a compound interest in benefits for you in greater and greater clarity, calmness, confidence and just results also in the outer world. Okay, all right, that's all for now. Have a great rest of your day.