November 12, 2025

Reader question re: What’s your time management strategy?

Daniel Georgiev responded to an “empty Gmail inbox” image of mine on LinkedIn to ask:

What’s your time management strategy, Jonathan Stark?

Thanks for asking, DG!

The core DNA of my approach is from GTD by David Allen.

And my email management approach is from Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann (who was also heavily inspired by GTD).

But my REAL trick is keeping things ruthlessly simple.

For example, I have only THREE inboxes:

1. The lock screen on my phone
2. The week view in my calendar
3. The today view in my task tracker

With this simple setup, the “event loop” of my daily operating system looks like this:

• Check the lock screen on my phone
  • Is there an emergency-level notification?
  • If yes, respond
  • If no, rejoice ;-)
• Check the week view in my calendar
  • Do I have a meeting coming up now?
  • If yes, join the meeting
  • If no, note the time of the next meeting
• Check the today view in my task tracker
  • Is there a task I feel like working on right now that can fit into the available time before my next meeting?
  • If yes, do it
  • If no, do whatever I feel like in the available time
    • NOTE: I might set an alarm to snap me back to reality in time for my next meeting

Then, whenever I finish 1) responding to an emergency, 2) participating in a meeting, 3) completing a task, or 4) doing whatever I feel like, I go back to the top (i.e., lock screen) and run the process again.

I’m not sure, but I’d guess I run through this loop between ten and fifty times a day.

Why am I telling you all this?

I’m glad you asked!

This process results in me spending a lot of time doing whatever I feel like, which I have found makes work not feel much like work at all.

What’s more, I never have to burn mental calories worrying about forgetting something. I trust the system and can relax, knowing nothing important will fall through the cracks.

Questions? Just hit reply!

Yours,

—J

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