How I manage projects with NotePlan 3.

How using NotePlan 3 allowed me to simplify my process for managing my personal and professional projects

8 min readDec 17, 2020

I am a freelance consultant, expert in theory of constraints, a methodology of continuous improvement and problem-solving. I am also a project manager with a long experience of large project recovery (people call me when things go wrong, and I help them get their project back on tracks) and an industrial quality adviser.

This means that I manage several projects for different clients daily in addition to my personal projects and try to fit my personal life inside the big picture. I manage at any moment about 25 projects, most of them are small and takes a few days and a few are long-term ones.
I was invited to test the beta versions of NotePlan 3 (NP3), and I used that opportunity to change my way of managing the information related to projects and simplify my system.

The goal and the issue

The goal is to manage my projects (both personal and professional) in all their aspects within one platform.

At that time I was using several applications:

Things for tasks
Information from meetings on Notion and Good notes (when handwritten), some in emails (Spark)
Mind maps in Mindnodes
Logic trees from the theory of constraints’ logical thinking process in Flying logic
Documents and articles in Keep it
Gantt chart in merlin project
Flow charts in Omnigraffle
My personal knowledge management in Obsidian for notes on reference documents.

As I was a good soldier, I followed the guidance of Apple and kept all files from each application in the dedicated folder in iCloud.

In addition, I had a structure of folders per client in Dropbox.

Lots of information scattered everywhere. Even if I was used to this system and able to manage it, I felt the need to simplify.

I saw in NP3 the good tool to go and streamline my process:

It uses a perennial format: Markdown.
It has the potential to replace part of my software
It synchronizes across all my devices (an iPhone, an iPad and a Mac).

The new process

I wrote an article some weeks ago about my first contact with NP3. Since then, I refined the way of organizing NP3 for my needs. It is still a work in progress, but it became much more stable now.

I began to use NP3 in different objectives and processes: Project Management, Reference Document Repository, Personal Knowledge Management and Customer Relationship Management. These different uses interact and interfere one with each other, but this article will only cover the project management.

In this process I use two kinds of notes:

The project note: The main note related to this project. This is my entry point to anything related to the project. I will describe later its structure and content.
The supporting notes: these are of various nature — minutes of phone calls, minutes of meeting, calculations, brainstorming, research.

Organization of folders

I am adopting the PARA organization (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives), and this has a direct impact on how I organize the files and folders on my hard drive and NP3.

In NP3 There is a folder directly under the root named “Projects.”

I have some clients for which I manage several projects. These clients deserve their own dedicated folder inside the project folder. This is used to be able to find together all the projects referring to a single client. It should be possible to do the same using a tag and a smart search but I elected to use a folder as this is not creating too much depth in the folder structure. Inside the client folder, I replicate the same organization as the main project folder.

In addition to the client dedicated folder, I created a folder “project Support.” In this folder, I keep all supporting documents that are related to the projects. If I feel that a project may have a significant number of supporting notes and that I want to keep them all together, then I create a sub folder called “project name — Support” to keep them all together.

I also created a folder named “Projects on Hold.” I keep there the project notes that are related to projects that are on hold (obviously). This is to get those projects out of my sight but still at hand.

Directly inside the “projects” folder, I keep my project notes and only them. All the supporting notes are stored all together inside the “Project Support” folder.

Structure of the Project note.

The project note is my main point of access to information related to the project. Unless I know exactly where I will find some information, I always begin by opening the Project Note.

The project is given a short name that allows me to know what it is about and I follow the name with an emoticon represent a client. In that way I know at first sight who is the client of the project.

In this note I find the following structure. The first headers are in format H3 not to be much too big.

Metadata: This is a collection of data that are useful to manage the project. It includes:
Start: date at which I started the project
Deadline: When the project is due.
Actual Completion: the date at which I actually completed the project.
Contacts: a list of people important in the project. It is organized in lines as follows @name / Full Name / Email (as a link mailto:) / Phone number
Client @name of the client
Review I use the “>” symbol to schedule the next review and allow it to appear in the reference on top of the calendar note of that day.
Context: This is a simple text explaining the context of the project, the objectives and all relevant information that I want to keep as definition of the project. It is often organized as “what this project is” and “what that project is not” as I found this way more precise to define a project.
Task list: This is the list of the necessary tasks to execute the project. Every task for this project is entered here and then scheduled to appear as a reference on top of the calendar note. I don’t use the “archive processed tasks,” outside the calendar notes. When the project is short, this section can be merged with the timeline below.
Timeline: This is a bullet-point list of events with information, links or dates (using the “>” symbol). This is where I find most of the links to support notes like minutes of meeting, minutes of call, or brainstorming notes.
Information. This is the only header in H2 format as it divides the note in two areas. In this section, I keep all ideas, information, references that I want to keep at hand (by example links to reference notes, or links to notes from my resources section on a methodology to solve a problem).

Workflow

As soon as the project materializes, I create a project note and store it in either the project folder or the client subfolder.

I usually use TextExpander to add the structure of the note, and then I fill in the available information.

Meetings or calls

When I have a meeting or a call, I create a note for the minute.

This note is organized as follows:

Metadata: It includes
Date >YYYY-MM-DD: date of the meeting to appear in the reference of the calendar date
Participants List of @mentions for the participants.
Links: This is the list of links to projects or client main notes that are relevant to the meeting/call. The links to reference documents are also listed here (links to Keep It documents, Dropbox documents, or URL).
Agenda: this is the list of topics discussed (as bullet list). For calls, this section is not present.
Decisions: This is the list of decisions or actions to be undertaken as the result of the meeting.
If an action has a follow-up to be scheduled, I add the “>” date link for it to appear on the relevant date.
If there is a task, it is listed here and then, scheduled on the relevant date.
When the task is related to a project, a link to the project is added to the description of the task.

If I want to add a support note related to a project, I most often enter the project note and create the link, then I click on the link and the note is created, then I add the necessary information.

Linking external information

When linking external information, a few situations can occur:

I need to link a file which is in Dropbox: I create a link and copy it. As I don’t publish the link, the file remains private. If the file is in iCloud, it is a bit more complicated, but basically, the principle is the same.
I need to link to an article or a file that I stored in Keep It. I copy the link to the file from the application.
I need to link an email. As I am using Spark, I can generate a link that will give me access to the email in a browser.

Termination of a Project

When a project is finished, I make an after-death review of the project:

A section “conclusion” is added to the project note to summarize the outcomes.
The project note is transferred to an archive folder (I don’t use the archive function, as it would make these notes no more searchable).
Each supporting note is reviewed and if it is not supporting anymore a project in progress, It is transferred to the archive folder.
If information contained in the supporting notes or in the project note would be useful for future projects, I create a note in the resource folder.

Maintenance of the system

One important task is the weekly review. I go through all projects notes and the supporting folder each week to see if the project notes should remain here, should be archived, put on hold or updated or if any supporting note should be archived or updated.

Conclusion

Switching to a system based on Markdown notes allowed me to have a more integrated approach to Project management. I still use specialized tools like Merlin projects or Flying Logic, but I have now at anytime with me the main information on every project I manage.
The process is much simpler and more efficient.

Didier Varlot
Senior consultant in Business Continuity and Theory of Constraints, Owner and CEO of SNTC.
Didier is a project manager with 35 years experience in project recovery and 25 years of application of the Theory of Constraints. He uses a mix of Theory of Constraints, Agile and Open organization (the TAO Way) to improve operation. His references go from railway industry to healthcare services, from chemical industries to green energy supply.

He is the author and moderator of the Thinking Logical: Synchronous Momentum and has his own publication on medium.
You can follow him also on Twitter, or LinkedIn

Contact Didier via LinkedIn, via email or via phone +40 744 501 044 (FaceTime and WhatsApp).