There’s something honest about paper. It doesn’t push notifications at you, doesn’t sync to the cloud, doesn’t ask for a subscription. It just holds what you give it. For me, it’s always been the first place a thought lands — a gateway into the broader system, not a destination in itself.
Over the years I developed what I call The Strikethrough System. It’s not a productivity system on its own. It’s a paper-based task capture system — a way of giving each item a status, and doing it with a pen before anything else gets decided.
Here’s how it works.
Four Marks. Four States.
Every item you write down exists in one of four conditions. The system reflects that with four possible marks:
- A clean, solid line through the item means it’s done. Not a checkmark beside it — a line through it. Checkmarks feel additive; they sit next to the work. A strikethrough is final. It crosses out what was, because the work is done.
- An arrow drawn through the item means you’ve moved it. Some things can’t be handled at the point of capture. They need to migrate to your master planner — whether that’s a digital tool, an analog system, or some combination of both. The arrow says: this lives somewhere else now. Once it’s in your master planner, it’s out of limbo. It has a home.
- A squiggled or scribbled-over line means it’s gone. Not everything deserves a home. Some ideas don’t hold up. Some tasks become irrelevant before you get to them. The scribble is a conscious release — not a failure, just a decision. Discarding something is still a decision, and the mark honors that.
- No mark means you haven’t decided yet. The item is untouched. That’s not necessarily a problem — it’s just honest. Something without a strikethrough of any kind sits unprocessed.
Those four marks handle what happens after you’ve captured something. But the system doesn’t stop at capture — it starts there. And what you add to an item in the moment of writing it down is where the real value lives.
Adding Attention Paths at the Point of Capture
Where the system earns its depth is in what you layer onto the item while you’re writing it down — when the context is freshest, before you’ve moved on to the next thing.
In TimeCrafting, we use Attention Paths to guide when and how to engage with a task. The TREAT framework — Time-based, Resource-based, Energy-based, Activity-based, and Theme-based — gives you five ways to qualify a task beyond just what it is. You can use all five at capture, but in practice, a few carry most of the weight.
To the right of each item, I write a shorthand marker for its most relevant Attention Path and circle it.
The Markers I Use Most
For Time-based, I use three increments: a circled 5 for short tasks, a circled 15 for medium ones, and a circled 25 for longer focused work — essentially a Pomodoro. The circle keeps the number from getting lost in the surrounding handwriting. Furthermore, if something is going to take longer than 25 minutes, I either break it into smaller pieces or flag it to recur — because anything that sprawls past that threshold is usually a project wearing a task’s clothing.
For Energy-based, I use an up arrow for high-intensity work and a down arrow for low-intensity work. These are the markers I reach for most often, because they answer the question I ask more than any other: What kind of energy does this actually require?
For items that need a specific location or resource to get done — errands, calls that require a particular person, tasks tied to a specific tool — I use a simple letter to indicate the resource. E for errands, for example.
Finally, if an item connects to a larger Time Theme — a project week, a monthly focus, a seasonal priority — I’ll note that as well. Theme-based qualification at the point of capture keeps the work tethered to something bigger, not floating as an isolated task.
I keep the number of Attention Path markers small on purpose. More options mean more decisions, and the system is meant to reduce friction at capture, not add it.
Color as a Quiet Signal
I also work in color. I’ve given each area of responsibility its own color, so the physical act of reaching for a pen already begins the sorting process before I’ve written a word:
- Green for professional work
- Orange for personal tasks and ideas
- Blue or black for general items that don’t land cleanly elsewhere
Strikethroughs go in red. As a fountain pen person, I have several inked and ready at any given time — which makes this easy. But if you’re not deep in that particular rabbit hole, the humble four-color BIC ballpoint works just as well and will make you feel like the coolest kid in class. Either way, having red available for your strikethroughs is the one non-negotiable.
The System in Practice
When I’m running a session at a workshop or live event, people will sometimes add their own variations — and the good ones always follow the same principle: they make the system speak in a way that a simple list can’t. One person added plus and minus signs to context markers to indicate energy levels within a given category. Another used arrows within their Attention Path markers to signal priority rather than energy. Both additions were honest extensions of what the system is already trying to do.
That’s the point. The Strikethrough System isn’t about enforcing a method — it’s about making each captured item say more than its words alone. By qualifying it at the moment of capture, you’re doing future-you a favor. When you sit down to process your paper later, or migrate items into your master planner, you’re not starting from scratch. You already know what kind of task it is, what kind of attention it needs, and where it belongs.
Paper is a beginning, not a filing cabinet. Used this way, it becomes a genuine gateway — something that feeds your broader practice instead of competing with it.
