get started

Fifteen minutes. Pick a tool you already use. Begin.

You don't have to read the Method essay first. You can come back to that after. This page is one first session — fifteen minutes from right now to a working version of The Lineup. If you want the why, it's all in the Method. If you just want to start, you're in the right place, pal.

pick a tool (any tool)

It does not matter. Index cards, a notebook you already use, Notion, Things 3, Obsidian, Asana, Apple Notes, the back of a steno pad. Whatever you'd actually open without thinking. If you don't have a preference, paper is faster than anything else for the first session — you can migrate later.

What you need: a place for one short list (the Roster), three short notes (the cards), and one bucket of stuff (the Shelf). That's it.

set a timer for fifteen

Not a kitchen timer in your head — an actual timer. The clock is there to stop you from making this precious. We're getting a starter version up, not the final draft. The final draft is what next Sunday is for.

minute zero to five: the roster

The Roster is your ongoing responsibilities. The parts of your life with no finish line. Write down five.

If you stall, these prompts always shake something loose:

Five is enough for today. You can add more next Sunday. Don't reach for a sixth right now if it's a stretch. The Roster self-regulates the more you understand your ongoing responsibilities.

minute five to twelve: three lineup cards

Pick three things you actually want to move this week. Not five. Not ten. Three.

For each one, write two sides — front and back of a card, top half and bottom half of a note, two short paragraphs in a doc. The medium doesn't matter. The separation does.

Front: why this, why now, what does done look like.

Back: what's the first move.

If you can't fill out both sides, because you just don't know the why and what, put that one on the Shelf and pick something else. It's the single most important habit in the whole system, and it's the one you'll bleed out on the most. Small is smart.

You should know why this, why now, what it looks like and what the first move is for any project in the lineup. Maybe not instantly. Take some deliberate time, but you should be able to answer all of that. If not, shelf it.

minute twelve to fourteen: a shelf

You almost certainly already have a Shelf, it just doesn't have that name yet. A bookmarks folder, a Notion page called "stuff," a Notes app inbox, a queue, a stack of saved articles. Pick the biggest one and call it the Shelf from now on.

Don't reorganize it. That's a Sunday job, or a foraging-session job, or a never job. The point right now is to name it and stop starting new ones.

minute fourteen to fifteen: book a sweep

Open your calendar. Put thirty minutes on it for next Sunday, or any day that works, but pick one. Title the block "Sweep." Done.

I call mine, "The Sunday Sweep!"

When you sit down for that block you'll have your Roster, your three cards, and your Shelf in front of you. The system will tell you what to do. You're looking for cards that are done, cards that should be killed or paused, Roster items that should be generating a new card, and Shelf stuff that's earned its way onto the lineup. Fifteen minutes, forty-five minutes, an hour, depending on the week and your workload. There's no timer. It's just a do the job moment.

that's the opening move

You can stop reading here.

If you want the longer thinking on why any of this works — what the cards are doing to your attention, why the Shelf is the load-bearing wall, where the whole thing comes from — the Method essay is the full story. If you just did the fifteen minutes: that's a bingo! Run it for a couple of weeks before you change anything. It gets smaller the longer you use it, not bigger.

If you missed today's fifteen, do it tomorrow. The first Sunday Sweep is the moment the system starts running on its own. Get there once, and you've got it. Get there twice, you're doing it. Get there routinely, you're locked.