One of the better productivity ideas I’ve seen over the years is using some app as a landing pad for all the random ideas, recommendations, and notes I come across in the moment. I’ve been using Things for this lately, and its surprisingly effective while remaining stress free.

Here's what my Inbox/landing pad looks like right now:

An inbox in Things with four items
In our modern times, Inbox is another word for procrastination

I've accumulated a handful of links to read, link to, watch, or write about. Some of these I'll look at in the morning and check off as I go. If something hangs around in the Inbox too long, it probably needs to go into a project somewhere. Usually, I read the thing or watch the video, check it off, and feel more productive about the day.

Most importantly, I'm capturing ideas or links whether they're Really Great or Just Okay and then dealing with them later. If an idea is really special, I start filling an idea in right away in Things, either in the Inbox or as part of a project. I also do this when I'm actually working on a task. Rather than try to balance Things, Bear, Goodnotes, etc. I jot down ideas and progress as I work in Things.

A task in Things with a note describing programming research
Thinking into a text box: an essential skill of contemporary times.

This running list of ideas, code, and further links may become a note in Bear, a blog post, a tweet, etc. Things isn't perfect here; it doesn't understand Markdown, it's not a sophisticated note-taking thing. But, it's quick and it works great, so it checks the boxes here. As I'm wrapping up the task, I will probably end up copy/pasting the whole task and notes into someplace for future reference.

So that works for me, right now!