Introducing my mum to PKM

My mother is excellent. She’s the kindest woman I know, and she’s also tiny and adorable. She won’t let me share a pic though, so you’ll have to trust me on that one.

She also wears many hats: she’s a specialist paediatric nurse, working 12-13 hour days in our chronically underfunded NHS, she is a trustee of a local charity, she’s the only person the dog wants to walk with now he’s old and grumpy, and she still finds time to look after family, friends, and her two delightful children who are grown up but still need advice.

Every time I go home, it’s clear that she has a lot on her plate. About a year ago she asked for my help organising herself. The family can help on evenings and weekends, but she needed support to help her through her days too, to feel less overwhelmed, more supported and more empowered.

Here’s what we did.

Spoiler alert: we end up with Twos (referral link), which she loves…

The beginning

To actually create a sustainable, helpful system, I knew Mum needed the lowest possible learning curve. It doesn’t make sense to give an overwhelmed person a new and overwhelming set up. So we started very simple: paper.

She was always saying she had lots of tabs open in her brain and she was super easily distracted, only doing jobs when she remembered they existed and when she was in the right place to do them (relatable!).

We started by ripping out pages from an A5 notebook. I put them in front of her on the dining table. I told her to write each section of life down at that time (work, management, training, pets, home, charity etc) and to brain dump all the tasks in her head associated with each “bucket”.

Then we got two highlighters. I told her to highlight one priority in pink, and then find the next two priority tasks and highlight in green. This was to help her:

1. externalise all the open tabs in her brain

2. give her visual cues for her priorities, to avoid the paralysis that comes with deciding which tasks to start and when.

We then stuck these bits of paper on the side of the fridge, which is the first thing you see when you enter the kitchen, and tested that as a system.

It worked great, but paper is messy, so I bought her a simple A3 magnetic whiteboard to replace it. The papers turned into sections on the whiteboard, and her tasks went below them. She starred the important tasks.

Evolving needs

For the days mum was at home, the whiteboard worked great for tasks. But she’s always out and about, and you can’t really take a big whiteboard with you to the supermarket.

She also started to learn that externalising information and reminders is also helpful. It’s not just about tasks.

So she asked for a system that could do that. We looked for an all-in-one alternative to Apple Notes that could do all this. I thought of Twos (referral link), which I’ve been using for nearly a year for my lists. It’s a lovely app run by two great people. It’s clear from the community that it can support your whole life very nicely, so I was confident recommending it to Mum.

By why specifically?

1. on mobile and laptop (Twos is wherever she is)

2. offline access (necessary when you live in the middle of nowhere)

3. reminders (never again forget to order medication!)

4. daily note (daily brain dump)

5. all task view (in the mood to be productive? just look in the task view)

6. calendar integration (her work shifts come up, good for looking in advance)

7. Good search (she loves search)

The set up

When introducing someone to a tool for the very first time, you should start by solving their biggest need. It’s an easy win and it gets them interested to learn more. We all know how easy it is to switch off when being taught something we have no grounding in.

So here’s a rough re-enactment of how the set up went:

We set up a reminder for her medication. Win

Then we added her calendar in. Win

Then I showed her what a daily note is. “No need to open a new note every time you want to write something down like in Apple notes. Just write everything in your daily note.” This was a new concept, but she was interested.

Ok, now let’s make one of the things you’ve written down in your daily note a task. “Ooo that was easy.”

Ok, now let’s make a list and add some things in there. “Ok that was easy.” Add a task in here too (she knows how to now).

Now click on the tasks button to see all your tasks. She honestly gasped with excitement seeing two tasks from different places come together in the task view.

At that point, she absolutely believed it was worth a Sunday morning to transfer relevant tasks and information from Apple notes (which she’d been chaotically using since 2015).

We didn’t want to move everything from Apple to Twos, that’s just moving the overwhelm. We probably spent 2 hours going through all her notes and slowly teaching her which buttons to press on the keyboard:

Then, crucially, we moved the Twos app on her phone to where Apple notes was before. She’s used to navigating there, so we just made sure she could easily pick up the new habit of using a new app.

And that was it, I left her to it.

In the following weeks, I got a text saying she’s recruited her work friends to it. And I continue to get those updates months later.

But this is all my view, let’s hear from mother…

Her response

We sat down recently to chat about Twos.

Mum said she liked:

• the all-in-one nature of the app

• seeing the tasks she has ticked off, that makes her feel productive

• seeing confetti when she ticks tasks off, that makes her feel great

• how jobs get carried over, they’re not forgotten about in previous daily notes

• bookmarks and lists

She also quickly found that she seeks out her phone to add information or tasks because she knows she can find it again. It’s not lost in the Apple notes graveyard.

For example, she’s made a list of work contacts: who to speak to about leaflet printing, who to call from purchasing etc.

She also really loves the daily note and how you can put everything in there.

My POV

I think one reason she’s probably enjoying it is Twos deals really nicely with short term and long term info. Apple notes (in my mother’s usage) treats everything the same.

Whereas Twos being on a thing level means in one view you can have tasks, reminders and notes, but you can zoom in on just tasks in the task tab, just reminders in the reminder tabs, just lists in the list tabs. She really liked this.

I am incredibly passionate about spreading the word about PKM/digital systems/whatever you want to call it, and showing how it can genuinely help people and make people feel good.

So that’s how I introduced my mum to PKM. It was a lovely experience. She’s taught me everything I know, so it’s nice to give something back.

Have you helped family members find PKM? Would love to hear any stories or tips!