Of all the things I've learned in more than 16 years of studying productivity, one quote from David Allen has always been my favorite: "Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them."

I am constantly reminded of this. We have ideas, requests, commitments, things we need to discuss, things we need to buy, and things we absolutely cannot forget. Yet somehow, we expect our brains to keep track of all of them. I try to do the opposite: the moment something enters my head, I try to get it out of there and into a system I trust. I will walk you through how I do it below.

Tip of the Week: Don't try to remember everything. Build a system that remembers it for you. Capture first, process later, and eventually turn what matters into time on your calendar.

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The Theory Behind

The Theory

Our minds are great at generating ideas, but not at managing them. In Getting Things Done, David Allen argues that our brains shouldn't be used as storage systems. His methodology starts with Capture (get everything that has your attention out of your head and into a trusted inbox). Only then do we Clarify, Organize, Reflect, and Engage. The important word for me is trusted. If we don't trust that we'll come back to something, our brain will keep trying to remind us about it.

Unfinished things have a way of staying with us. Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik observed that incomplete tasks tend to remain more mentally accessible than completed ones, a phenomenon that became known as the Zeigarnik Effect. That's why a random commitment can pop into our head while we're having dinner, exercising, or trying to sleep. Interestingly, later research has found that making a concrete plan for an unfinished task can reduce these intrusive thoughts. We don't necessarily need to finish everything immediately, but we need to know what we're going to do with it.

Writing things down is a form of cognitive offloading. Researchers use this term to describe how we reduce cognitive demands by transferring information to the external world, using calendars, lists, notes, reminders, or even our phones. Instead of spending mental energy trying to remember WHAT we need to do, we can use that energy to think about HOW to do it. The tool itself matters less than having an external system we trust and consistently use.

What I’ve Learned

Over time, I've built my own little operating system around this idea. My main inbox is literally my email inbox. Whenever I think of something (personal or work-related) I send myself an email. However, if something comes from my wife or requires a conversation first, we use separate WhatsApp groups for different parts of our life: money, each of our kids, the house, purchases, etc. This surprises people a bunch when they see it, but it actually works as it prevents things from falling off the cracks.

From emails and DMs, I follow a version of GTD. If something takes less than two minutes, I do it. Otherwise, it goes to my calendar or to the appropriate task list. For work, I track the task, some context, and who on my team owns it or whom I need to follow up with. At home, my wife and I use a shared Google Sheet with the same basic logic: what needs to happen, context, owner, urgency, and importance.

But here's the most important part: I don't run my life from my to-do list. I run it from my calendar. I regularly review those lists, sort them by urgency and importance, and take the highest-priority items that realistically fit into my available time and put them on my calendar. So the flow is essentially: Capture → Process → Prioritize → Calendar.

Make It Happen

1. Create an inbox. Choose the easiest possible way to capture thoughts the moment they appear. For me, it's emailing myself. Yours could be Notes, Todoist, paper, or something else. Make it ridiculously easy.

2. Capture immediately. When someone asks you for something (or you suddenly remember something) don't tell yourself, I'll remember. Put it in your inbox.

3. Process your inbox regularly. Capturing without processing just creates another pile. Schedule time to decide what each item actually means and what needs to happen next.

4. Use the two-minute rule. Borrowing directly from GTD: if an action takes less than two minutes, do it. Otherwise, delegate it, put it on a list, or schedule it.

5. Prioritize your lists. Add enough information to make decisions later: context, owner, urgency, and importance. Your list should help you decide what deserves your limited time.

6. Move priorities to your calendar. This is the final step in my system. A list tells me what I could do. My calendar tells me what I've actually committed time to doing.

The objective isn't to become better at remembering everything. It's to build a system good enough that you don't have to.

After all, I would much rather use my mind for having the next great idea than for remembering that I need to buy toothpaste.

Rememberingly,

Jorge Luis Pando

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