Hello everyone,
Since publishing the free KEE productivity system over 2.5 years ago, it’s been downloaded by over 1,000 people—and I continue to rely on it daily.
For those unfamiliar: the KEE system is a lightweight productivity method built around three building blocks—Energy (potential actions), Engines (structured workflows that convert Energy into outcomes), and Knowledge (useful, persistent information). Instead of organizing by categories or projects, KEE focuses on capturing what's actionable, clarifying intentions, and minimizing clutter. It’s designed to help you make progress with minimal friction—no overplanning, no hoarding, just effective forward motion.
Over the past months I've taken some time to reflect on the system and identified three key improvements to both the method and the template, which I'll share with you today.
Want to deep-dive into the method straight away? Here are the direct links:
A core principle of the KEE system is cutting clutter and avoiding the hoarding of information. Too often, we save things just in case and end up wasting time organizing what we’ll never use.
The original KEE system tackled this by requiring every input (Energy) to have a clearly defined follow-up action and workflow (Engine). If an Energy item wasn't obviously useful, you'd either define a tangible outcome and workflow or, more commonly, discard it. No overthinking needed: if something truly matters, it'll naturally resurface, providing another chance to act on it.
Yet, even with these rules, I noticed my task databases gradually expanding and bloating with items I'd probably never act on. To combat this, I've introduced an additional clean-up mechanism. The updated KEE system now features a Newness property—a visual indicator clearly showing when items were last edited. For example, in the Energy database, it shows a colored circle based on the item's Last Edited Time:
🟢 ≤ 7 days
🟡 ≤ 31 days
🟠 ≤ 49 days
🔴 ≤ 60 days
⚫ > 60 days
The dashboards automatically prioritize fresh items and filter out older ones, creating a self-cleaning system. If something hasn't been touched in 60 days, you probably don't need it!
This effectively shrinks your backlog, removes outdated tasks, and ensures you're always focused on what genuinely matters.
Originally, the KEE system separated short-term notes from long-term, structured information. The idea is that some Knowledge you actively build and refine over time, while other notes you quickly jot down, keep briefly, then discard. While the distinction still holds, I found the separation blurry and often unnecessary
The updated system simplifies this. Short-lived notes no longer have their own Engine, and instead remain simply as Energy items, which you can add directly to any existing Engine, such as the Maintenance or Task Engines.
Meanwhile, you are encouraged to add your living and dynamically updating notes (such as a book summary) directly into the Knowledge database instead of temporarily keeping them as Energy.
This change makes your workflow simpler, more intuitive, and better aligned with how notes naturally evolve over time.
The original KEE system encouraged linking actions or insights (Energy) directly to related Knowledge items. The advantage was clear: linked Energy items would retain their own status (such as To-do), signaling they still needed to be processed or integrated into existing Knowledge.
While this approach still works well for many people, I noticed I tend to make scattered notes on a topic and linking each individual Energy item separately became cumbersome and confusing.
To simplify, I've added a new third column in the processing dashboard, specifically designed for quick drag-and-drop sorting. Now, you can easily gather related Energy items by simply dragging them into the appropriate Knowledge item.
This small adjustment significantly speeds up my workflow — especially helpful when combining brief exerpts into one overarching document.
To recap, the key improvements to the KEE system are:
A self-cleaning backlog — keep your databases lean and relevant
Cleaner note-taking — short-lived notes now flow naturally into tasks & knowledge
Simpler knowledge integration — drag-and-drop processing for faster consolidation
The KEE system is built on the broader four-step problem-solving approach I'm breaking down in my upcoming book: The 4 Acts: An Overview of the Fundamental Explanations of Reality and How to Apply Them Effectively — 1. Understand 2. Choose 3. Do 4. Learn.
If you’d like to review the current version, reply to this e-mail and I’ll gladly send over the manuscript.
I hope these template improvements and general principles may be of use to you in your pursuit of more effective and frictionless productivity. If you have any suggestions or follow-up questions, feel free to leave a comment or reply to this post.
Have a good one,
Edwin
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