Productivity tools and systems are meant to give you a way to organize notes and files so you don’t have to make the same decisions repeatedly. They usually come with a set of rules or categories that promise better clarity and less overwhelm once everything is in place. Whenever I adopt a new system, it feels like progress at first, but it doesn’t usually last.

Once my work changes, the system doesn’t always accommodate it. So I end up adjusting categories and spend time trying to make space for the new, and at that point it’s not even the original system I started with. Here’s why I’ve dropped several productivity systems within a couple of months, and what I’m doing to manage my work now.

Why productivity systems stop working

Different formats, scaling issues, and multi-tool work

One of the reasons productivity systems fail for me is because my documents are multi-format and spread across multiple productivity tools. My notes are more than text; they include PDFs, spreadsheets, screenshots, web clippings, and more. Sure, there’s no limit on what you can keep in the same folder in a dedicated file management tool, but systems like PARA don’t define how different formats should be handled. A PDF might be reference material, a spreadsheet something I need to constantly update, and a screenshot just temporary context. So over time, I need to remember which files are meant to be read once, which need follow-up, and which are still active - most of which will depend on their format.

Another factor is multi-app work. Not only do I use multiple productivity apps at the same time as part of my work, but I also like testing out different apps just from a user experience perspective. Naturally, my files end up pretty scattered across apps that all have their own foldering systems, and some proprietary formats. Currently, my pipeline includes Notepad for capture, Obsidian and AFFiNE for organization, and Google Drive for storage and sync. Trying to force a single productivity system to fit over all of that just adds too much friction.

The productivity systems I’ve tried, and left behind

PARA

PARA is a productivity framework that organizes work into four categories: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. The idea is to sort everything based on how actionable it is. Active work goes into Projects, ongoing responsibilities sit in Areas, reference material go into Resources, and the more irrelevant stuff goes into Archives.

The only way PARA works, however, is you use subfolders within these folders. You’re meant to break them down into categories using topics or dates. It worked for my plain-text stack for a minute, but it didn’t take long for my actual day-to-day work to end up in the wrong folders, especially since I kept confusing Areas with Archive, and was working with multiple file formats.

Zettelkasten

Zettlekasten is a note-taking method built around small atomic notes that link to one another. Each note is supposed to capture a single idea written in your own words and connected to related notes through links rather than folders. These links are supposed to form a web of knowledge that helps with understanding and recall. Tools like Zettlr are perfect for this style of information capture, and I still use it from time to time.

What didn’t work for me is the level of precision it required at capture time. Each note needs to be somewhat distilled, titled, and linked correctly to be useful later. In practice, it slowed me down a lot more than quickly jotting things down in something like Google Keep or Notepad and expanding on those notes later on with the help of NotebookLM.

CODE

CODE is a productivity framework for how information moves between input and output. It stands for Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express. Instead of focusing on where things are stored, it more so focuses on what you’re supposed to do with that information over time. So you capture the materials, organize them, transform them into something more concise, and eventually express it through writing or other finished work.

Where CODE didn’t work for me is once again just a scattering of different file formats. Some formats, like PNGs (my screenshots), are meant to be temporary references, and they ended up taking up the bulk of the space in this system. CODE assumes a lot of follow-through for everything you capture, which isn’t realistic for me in the long-term, given that I capture way more than I express.

LATCH

LATCH is the only one on this list that sort of stuck for me because it’s the simplest and most flexible system of them all. It organizes information based on Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, or Hierarchy. It’s a model for how people naturally tend to sort information, and it’s quite adaptable to PKM tools using any one or a combination of these five methods.

This is not necessarily a system I abandoned, I’m just not using most parts of it. I organize by Time and Category. But that’s about it - so I’m not exactly using the LATCH system, just sorting by date and theme like everyone else does.

What ended up working for me

It was just the most practical option

As I’ve mentioned, most of my work can be categorized by the format it’s captured in. Plain text is usually for quick notes, Markdown is for expanded notes and drafts, PDF is for studying and research materials, PNG screenshots for quick reference capture, and spreadsheets for ongoing projects that need constant updating, among a couple more. So, I decided to let the format dictate how I handle each piece of information.

Each type usually has its own toolkit I use to create, edit, and export. For example, PDFGear for PDFs, Obsidian for Markdown, and NotebookLM for synthesizing all of it. By leaning on the affordances of each format, I don’t have to spend time converting or reclassifying files just to fit a specific framework. In fact, there are tools dedicated to handling a multi-format system like this, such as TagSpaces, which organizes files by type using tags.

The system that stuck for me

After trying PARA, Zettelkasten, CODE, LATCH, and a handful of other frameworks, my biggest takeaway is that no system will be perfect for everyone. Some of these might work for you as-is or with some tweaks, or completely derail your flow. I’m not giving up on established productivity systems entirely, but I’ve learned to focus on how I capture and organize information first, rather than forcing it into a system that doesn’t fit.