LENS: How I Stay Clear on Priorities, Decisions, and Next Steps

For quite some time, my productivity system was built around TORP – the Total Recall Productivity Method. It served me well. It helped me capture information, structure work and keep a sense of control over a growing amount of tasks, notes, and ideas.

You can find the original TORP write‑up here if you’re interested in the details.

Image by the author created in cooperation with MS Copilot

But systems don’t live in a vacuum. They live inside roles, contexts and real work.

And my role changed.

With my new role days became less defined by individual tasks and more by ongoing conversations, overlapping topics and decisions that rarely belonged to a single meeting or email. Instead of “finishing” things, I found myself constantly navigating between threads that evolved in parallel and being exposed to a constant stream of ideas, decisions, tensions and half‑finished thoughts.

At some point I noticed something that felt like a warning sign: I was using plain full‑text search more and more often to find information again. That’s usually a good indicator that a system no longer fits the shape of the work.

This article is a reflection on how and why I adapted my system — and how this evolution eventually led to what I now call LENS.

The problem wasn’t volume. It was meaning

The first insight took me a while to articulate.

The issue wasn’t that I had too much information. The issue was that I didn’t have a good enough relationship with it anymore.

In a management role, extracting information, connecting it and keeping an up‑to‑date mental model of what’s going on is central to the job. Without notes, that’s simply impossible. But with my existing setup, I increasingly felt that information went in… and then disappeared into structure.

When I find myself searching instead of navigating, something is off.

On top of that, I wanted to do more with the information I already had. Generative AI can be incredibly useful when you have a well‑structured body of written knowledge. Unfortunately, the integration of Microsoft Copilot with OneNote is still very limited, which made that path frustrating.

So I stepped back and looked at the system itself (not the tools).

From Total Recall to LENS

What emerged from that reflection was a fairly simple realization:

I no longer needed a system optimized for remembering everything. I needed one optimized for seeing clearly.

That’s where LENS comes in.

LENS is my attempt to shift the focus from collection to clarity or from storing information to extracting and connecting knowledge that stays useful over time. It’s not a radical break from what I used before, but a clear change in emphasis.

A shift in focus: from quantity to quality

The most important conceptual change was this:

I no longer optimize for collecting information. I optimize for the future usefulness of knowledge elements.

That led to a few concrete decisions:

• Fewer, but clearer notes
• A stronger distinction between reference and knowledge
• Explicit effort spent on synthesis, not just capture

LENS is built around this idea. It doesn’t try to hold everything. It tries to make the important things visible and understandable.

Structural changes: a leaner foundation

The foundation with PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive) remains intact. But it has been simplified and refocused to better support LENS.

Projects

• I started using Meta‑Pages as knowledge nodes for projects.
• Larger, ongoing projects still have index pages (mostly carried over from before).

Areas

• Areas were heavily reduced. Less is more.
• Meta‑Pages were introduced for major themes (for example IT Management).
• Older, larger pages were simplified and now mainly serve as reference for longer notes (e.g. infrastructure topics).

Resources

• This category was revived.
• Typical long‑term information lives here: suppliers, team information, systems, recurring reference material.
• I’m still evaluating whether some older Area pages belong here instead.

Archive

• Largely unchanged.

Many elements still exist, but their role has shifted. PARA now acts more as a reference layer, while the actual thinking happens elsewhere.

The LENS core: a second brain layer

Inspired by Obsidian‑style workflows, I introduced an additional layer that forms the core of LENS:

• Second Brain: the home for new notes
• Meta‑Pages: actively maintained knowledge hubs
• Guides: instructions and how‑tos
• Insights: small, focused knowledge elements
• Others: longer‑lived note types like Decisions, Concepts, Patterns

The key idea is that Insights and Decisions are deliberately kept elemental. They are meant to be linked, revisited and combined. This is where LENS really starts to work: not by storing, but by relating.

Workflow changes: writing less, thinking more

Structure alone doesn’t solve much if the workflow stays the same.

The guiding principle behind LENS is:

If a note is worth migrating later, it must be worth writing clearly now.

Meetings

• Notes are taken as before (OneNote, INBOX).
• After the meeting I ask:
  • Are there actionable To‑Dos? → MS To Do
  • Is there information with future relevance?
    • If yes: create a knowledge element (Insight, Decision, …)

      Emails

• If there’s a To‑Do → MS To Do.
• If the content might be relevant later:
  • Interesting emails are moved to an Outlook folder (“Content as reference”).
  • In bulk (e.g. once per week):
    • Save reference in OneNote (INBOX)
    • Extract knowledge elements where useful
• If not relevant: leave it in Outlook.

This bulk approach is important. It keeps the overhead low and prevents me from over‑processing information that doesn’t actually deserve it.

The weekly review: where LENS comes together

One thing became obvious: LENS needs a weekly synthesis ritual.

The weekly review includes:

• Processing reference emails
• Reviewing the week’s knowledge elements
• Creating cross‑links
• Summarizing the most important themes

This is where scattered information turns into a coherent picture. It’s also the part that will require the most discipline )and probably delivers the most value).

Meta‑Pages as the backbone

One of the biggest improvements came from Meta‑Pages.

What started as a simple PARA overview evolved into a personal landing page with highly condensed information. It contains the five most important current topics, each with links to deeper pages.

I deliberately limited myself to four Meta‑Pages that require active maintenance:

1. IT Projects: A Meta‑Page for project‑related topics.
2. IT Management: The most granular and interconnected Meta‑Page, linking to index pages and acting as the main thinking space of my current role.
3. Department Management & Strategy: A Meta‑Page with some depth, a small index and a few evergreen concepts I want to keep close.
4. Decisions & Tensions: A dedicated space for decisions and unresolved tensions (a core element of management work).

Everything else still exists, but more clearly in a reference role.

Current State: starting up

Right now, LENS works surprisingly well in OneNote.

There are limitations:

• Tags only work via workarounds.
• There is no real knowledge graph.
• AI support is still limited.

But the core logic is already in place. Once the Second Brain part moves to Obsidian, LENS should get a significant boost: easier discovery, more active “thinking with the system”, and better use of AI across my own knowledge base.

What comes next

Independent of tools, there are still improvements to make:

• refining tags
• small structural tweaks
• turning the weekly review into a habit

For now, the most important thing is to use the system and let it evolve naturally.

Productivity systems shouldn’t be static. They should grow with the role you’re in.

And sometimes, the most important update isn’t a new tool. It’s a clearer way of seeing your own work.

A question for you

If this evolution resonates with you:

Would you be interested in a more practical, step‑by‑step guide on how to build or adapt a system like LENS for yourself?

If so, let me know: I’m considering writing a more hands‑on follow‑up.