Dr. Peter Attia’s Hipster PDA

Dr. Peter Attia flew solo on an episode of the Tim Ferris Show recently. He answered questions Tim Ferris’s audience had for him after his popular first appearance on the show.

His health and nutritional insights were numerous, entertaining and often over my head. The episode got pretty hot and heavy on the science, but I enjoyed his over all message of low carb, no grain, high fat, healthy protein with lots of vegetables which aligns with the diet I currently (attempt to) ascribe to.

However, at the end of the show, my ears perked up further when he mentioned productivity. Dr. Attia went on to describe his self-made, analog, GTD-esque system I’d be interested in trying for myself. Here’s the partial transcript that describes the system.

“I’m a list guy. I’m maniacal about list. I carry this little leather folder with me and it has 3x5in cards within it.”

“Blue card is the top card and it represents everything I have to do on a given day. I don’t get to go to bed until everything is done. There are boxes next to all of my to-dos. I put half a hash next to it if has been started. When it’s been completed it gets the full x.”

“Beneath that I have a pink card. The pink card is everything that needs to be done by Friday of that week. I fill out a new pink card every Saturday morning and that’s my work related tasks.”

“I then have a white card with all of the personal related tasks that need to be done for the month. For example, get my wife’s birthday present, register the home warranty, switch out car insurance just dumb stuff that has to get done that I don’t want to forget about.”

“Then I have a yellow card which holds long term work related things. I don’t put these things on deadline, but I find it very cathartic to be able to write stuff down because it takes the stress away from me.”

“I find that a lot of people get paralyzed by not being able to do stuff. They get overwhelmed by things. I’m in the same boat. I’m very prone to this. Yet when I put stuff down on paper and any time of day any day of the week I can pull out all of my notecards and I can look at all of the crap that has to get done, it actually alleviates my stress. It’s like, “Yeah, yeah. I’m not going to forget about it.” I think most of our anxiety is worrying that we are going to forget stuff, not how much stuff we have to do. Of the two, the former is worse.”

Dr. Attia then goes onto say, “If you go through MeyersBriggs testing, obviously I’m a J on the P/J axis. So I crave structure. I crave organization. I crave order.”

So for all of you non colored blind, J’s out there, give it a shot. Get your hipster PDA at Amazon for $9.99.