The city map
I keep my whole life as a city — districts are the areas of my life, and the buildings are the projects, people and deadlines inside them.
✎ a little city of my work — 3D, drag to orbit
Lists and Kanban boards never made me want to open them. A little city does. So I built one for my whole life, work included. Each area of my life is a district; the things in it are buildings I place and arrange myself. A project I'm building, a person I'd build it with, a deadline coming up — they all sit on the same map, and the map is the overview: I open it and the shape of everything I'm doing is just there.
I think spatially — in places and neighbourhoods. Carrying everything in my head meant things kept slipping out; the only fix that ever held was a physical whiteboard. This is that whiteboard, as a city I can live inside.
I think in places, not lists.
Where you come in
A small, honest window into how my head works — and the most "me" way I've found to hold a lot at once without feeling buried. If your life doesn't fit in a list either, this is one answer. And if you're wondering what I'd do with your messy problem: this. Build the tool around how the head actually works.
Where it's going
Right now I place every building by hand. Next they start to mean things on their own — a project grows as it moves, the people helping show up around the work, deadlines rise like towers you can see coming. The part I'm most excited about: the city building itself from what I'm actually doing, so wandering it is the same as knowing where my life stands.