# Getting the MOST out of NotePlan
If you haven’t heard of Getting Things Done, by David Allen, we highly recommend reading his book: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280. NotePlan is designed and built around some of the key principles which we’ll describe briefly here:

- Start by getting thoughts out of your head. The human brain is incredibly powerful, but when you try to remember everything in your head, you have less space to actually process and do work. So use NotePlan to **capture anything** and everything that you can think of for your life, whether it’s personal, family, work, anything.

- You can **capture ideas in Notes** (for example by calling a note “Planning”) or feel free to use Calendar Note by clicking on today (or any other day).

- After you capture ideas, think about what are high priority projects or tasks that need to be accomplished. Spend just a few seconds to consider what specific things you need to do, and **create tasks** for those.

- Make sure that your **calendars are synced** with NotePlan, because you will now plan out your days and weeks ahead to ensure you are meeting commitments such as being at work on time, taking kids to school, etc. but also assigning tasks to days where you know you have time to accomplish them.

- We recommend **reviewing** your calendar, notes, and tasks on a daily basis. Ask yourself how the day went, and what you’ll need to do for tomorrow to be a success. Try to plan your activities ahead of starting them (so the night before or morning before). Also, we recommend doing at least a little bit of planning on a weekly and monthly basis as well.

- One way to help you get thoughts out of your head is to think of the parts of your life that are most important to you, here are a few **“life pillars”** that you can think about:
	- Your health (nutrition, fitness, mental health, spiritual health)
	- Your family and friends (relationships, pets, neighbors, people at work)
	- Your finances (career, budgeting, spending, investments)
	- Your education (current school, lifelong learning, books to read
	- Giving back (donations, volunteering, community engagement)

Good luck, and if you ever have any questions or feedback, please email us at hello@noteplan.co

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