
Nested Folders
Interested in learning more about making the best use of your time and establishing your best personal workflows? So are Rosemary Orchard and Scotty Jackson. Join them as they discuss ways of thinking, working, and using technology solutions to achieve more and feel good about doing their best work.
Latest episodes

4 snips
Jan 14, 2020 • 28min
Episode 14: You’ve Got to Have a Plan
The key is to have a plan, so that you know what you’re changing when you change it. Rose and Scotty talk about what it is to have a plan, make a plan, and deal with having a plan. We discuss approaches and things to think about, as well as tools we use about those (Airtable is probably mentioned).
Some of the things Rose and Scotty mention and love:
iA Writer
Drafts
Agenda
Rubber Duck Debugging
Taskpaper format
Airtable
GitHub
Notion
WhenWorks
Zoho Projects
Taskheat
OmniFocus
OmniPlan
OmniOutliner
Nested Folders episode 12: Actions vs. Reference
GTD Podcast episode 55: David Allen on Removing System Drag
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Dec 31, 2019 • 29min
Episode 13: The Year End Review
Rose and Scotty discuss their approaches to year end reviews, reflecting on what has been and planning for what is to come.
Some questions we ask ourselves:
What did I do this year that was awesome?
Why did that work so well?
What do I want to do next year?
What could I have improved from this year?
How might I improve that?
What did I learn this year?
What mistakes did I make?
What habits need time and attention?
What’s already planned for next year?
What am I excited about?
Other things we mention and love:
Streaks
OmniFocus
Cortex Theme System
Nested Folders episode 2, Non-Zero Day (please excuse the early day podcast proof of concept-level audio quality)
The Personal Retreat Handbook, by Mike Schmitz
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Dec 17, 2019 • 33min
Episode 12: Actions vs. Reference
Rose and Scotty discuss the difference between and management of actions/tasks and reference material.
Things we mention and love:
Rose’s blog post on DEVONthink, OmniFocus, and Shortcuts
Scotty’s blog post on project creation in Agenda and OmniFocus with Shortcut
DEVONthink
OmniFocus
Shortcuts
Agenda
Evernote
Nested Folders episode 10: Capturing Braindumps
Nested Folders episode 5: How We Weekly Review
Nested Folders episode 11: Someday/Maybe/Never
AirTable
Confluence
Once again, a huge thanks to J.F. Brissette and JFB Media Solutions, whose audio engineering expertise helped Rose and Scotty sound their very best.
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Dec 3, 2019 • 28min
Episode 11: Someday/Maybe/Never
Rosemary and Scotty discuss the purpose and value of someday/maybe lists, as well as different ways to manage them, featuring Rose’s use of git as a method.
Here are some of the the things we mention and love:
Eisenhower matrix
OmniFocus
Nested Folders Episode 4: When Not to be Productive
Pinterest
DevonThink
Trakt
Goodreads
Git
BBEdit
Source Tree
Working Copy
iA Writer
Drafts
Taskpaper formatting reference
Markdown formatting reference, followed by its extended syntax for tasks
Bullet Journal
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

5 snips
Nov 19, 2019 • 30min
Episode 10: Capturing Braindumps
Rose and Scotty discuss how we unencumber our brains by capturing all the things through various tools and techniques.
Apps we mention and love:
Scapple
MindNode
OmniOutliner
Notability
Some resources we talk about:
Build your OmniFocus workflow trigger list
Rose’s Trigger List Shortcut
Again, special thanks to J.F. Brissette and JFB Media Solutions, whose audio engineering expertise helped Rose and Scotty sound their very best.
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Nov 5, 2019 • 30min
Episode 9: Professional and Personal
Scotty and Rose discuss managing professional and personal (and personally professional?) demands in systems to get things done while also organizing effectively.
Stuff we mention and love:
OmniFocus
Agenda
Ulysses
Drafts
Fantastical
A special thanks to J.F. Brissette and JFB Media Solutions, whose audio engineering expertise helped Rose and Scotty sound their very best.
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Oct 22, 2019 • 38min
Episode 8: Setting Up Your Workspace
Rose and Scotty discuss the optimization of workspaces in home, coffee shops, on the go, and possibly even in an office.
Some things we mention and love:
Roost Stand (with alternatives on Amazon)
Zebra telescopic biro (ball-point pen)
Anker PowerCore Speed 20000
ZMI USB PD Backup Battery & Hub
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Oct 8, 2019 • 27min
Episode 7: How to Do Productivity With Others (Who May or May Not)
Rose and Scotty discuss how not everyone might work a productivity system, and strategies for collaborating with others whose systems you don’t know of or can’t see.
Some things we mention and love:
Getting Things Done, by David Allen
Slack
Filofax
Kanban
Shortcuts (iOS)
Agenda (iOS)
Student collaborative note taking during lecture, via GeoEd Trek
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

Sep 24, 2019 • 30min
Episode 6: Is It Worth Automating?
Rose and Scotty discuss (perhaps not really answering) the question of whether work is worth investing in automation for. From anger to accuracy to convenience, there are a number of great reasons to think about automation as a valuable tool.
Check out the Automators podcast, which Rose co-hosts with David Sparks, and which is a wealth of automation information.
We talked about a lot of software in this episode, including:
Airtable
Shortcuts
Zapier
Integromat
Excel (not a database)
Numbers
OmniFocus
Also mentioned is the Brydge Keyboard (with a y).
Get all kinds of insights about automation from Rose’s blog, and there are some Shortcuts on Scotty’s blog as well!
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!

19 snips
Sep 10, 2019 • 29min
Episode 5: How We Weekly Review
Rose and Scotty discuss how they conduct their productivity reviews and how they like to think about them.
Mentioned in the podcast:
The GTD Weekly Review checklist
GTD: Weekly Review audio program (which Scotty quoted without thinking about and which is a good one – no affiliation)
Blog post: Pre-Frontal Mondays, by David Kadavy (Scotty referred to Executive Mondays, and this was the inspiration)
Not mentioned in the podcast:
Podcast: The Weekly Review, hosted by James Dempsey and Jean MacDonald (wonderful podcast)
If you enjoy Nested Folders, we’d love your support as a subscriber of Unnested Folders, where we produce monthly bonus supporter-only episodes to discuss and try to help solution listener questions and challenges. Thanks everyone!