The Best Way to Find the Tools and Apps You Need to Level Up Your Productivity Systems

Here, at the Paperless Movement®, people constantly share with us their productivity problems and all kind of issues:

• Scattered information.
• Not knowing what app or tool to use.
• How to get things done and move towards their goals.
• Not having defined workflows or processes to follow.
• Anxiety, stress, frustration.
  That’s why we designed and developed ICOR® and the ICOR® Framework.
  I encourage you to keep reading this article to better understand these concepts to overcome the problems listed above and unleash the full potential of your productivity system.
  Let’s dive in!

What Is ICOR®?

It’s an easy-to-implement 3-layer ecosystem we’ve created to help you start creating your productivity system, managing 2 fundamental elements in your life:

1. Information.
2. Action.
   ICOR® stands for INPUT, CONTROL, OUTPUT, and REFINE.

   Stage 1: INPUT

   With INPUT, the goal is quite simple: take information from “the outer world” and bring it to “your world”.
   You have to define these 4 things:

3. Your sources of information.
4. What you want or need to capture.
5. How to capture it.
6. The final destination of that info. What’s called a SSOT (Single Source Of Truth).
   

   Stage 2: CONTROL

   With the CONTROL stage, you decide what to do with the information you’ve captured.
   You have 2 options:

7. Act: actions you want to do to produce outcomes.
8. Think: these are thoughts that should drive you to actions in the future. That’s why you store them!
   After this stage, you’re moving from information to action, that’s essentially what ICOR® will do for you.

Thats why ICOR® produces actionable systems, systems that force you to take action. To move forward towards your goals.

And, that is why “ICOR® is where INFORMATION meets ACTION”.
ICOR® sits at the intersection of both of these worlds.

Stage 3: OUTPUT

This is where you’ll get results from the information you’ve captured and processed in the previous 2 stages.
Here, you’ll get a list of all the actions you need to achieve your goals.
You’ll be able to schedule them and start doing!
Because it’s only by doing that you can evolve and accomplish everything in life.

Stage 4: REFINE

REFINE is where you do 2 things:

1. Optimize
2. Automate
   This stage will speed up your productivity, work, and life by leveraging information.
   It’ll empower your task/project management so that everything runs smoothly.

By refining, you reduce your anxiety, stress, and feelings of frustration. You cross to the other side! Where peace of mind, relaxation, and focus are the ones that reign.

Now, you can start performing at your best!

What Is the ICOR® Framework?

At the Paperless Movement®, we are:

• 100% pragmatic.
• People who share things that work.
• Not academics.
  That’s why we’ve designed and developed the ICOR® Framework:
• To allow you to move from theory to practice.
• To move from a theoretical status to something you can really implement now and see results immediately.
  

  The ICOR® Framework is the starting point to define your current stack of tools and move it (and yourself) to the next level.

  It’s the way you should follow to unleash the full potential of your Productivity System.

How Can the ICOR® Framework Help You Improve Your Productivity System?

The ICOR® Framework allows you to see your work and life from the perspectives you need:

• Business vs. Personal.
• Knowledge (information) vs. Projects (action).
  Four worlds converging in just one single and clarifying image!
  An image that allows you to see all the overlaps and the missing points you’re constantly suffering.
  A view that’s not sequential. You won’t find any hierarchies on it!
  The Team Paperless Movement® has found a way for you to, at a glance:

1. Get a clear picture of the current status of your tool stack.
2. Find out how you can easily improve it.
   You’ll improve it by:
3. Removing redundancies.
4. Cleaning things up.
5. Identifying gaps you’re missing.
   You just need to fill in the missing pieces of this simple puzzle we’ve created for you.
   We made simple the chaos, the uncertainty, and your cluttered situation.
   By following our steps, you’ll end up with a tool stack that will perfectly meet all your needs, improving the way you work (and live).

How Does the ICOR® Framework Work?

Firstly, you have to split yourself into your 2 main areas in life:

1. Personal
2. Business
   The personal area represents how you work yourself, on your own.
   The business area represents how you work with your co-workers and people you relate with at work.
   Secondly, you have to differentiate between the 2 main worlds in ICOR®:
3. Information (Knowledge Management)
4. Action (Task Management and Project Management)
   The beauty of the ICOR® Framework is it shows all the combinations between those 4 worlds in the simplest and easiest way possible.
   You have 4 main areas:
5. PKM (Personal Knowledge Management)
6. PPM (Personal Project Management)
7. BKM (Business Knowledge Management)
8. BPM (Business Project Management)
   Now, you just need to follow these simple steps:
9. Create 2 lists based on your software tools/apps: personal tools/apps and business tools/apps.
10. Place each tool/app onto the ICOR® Framework according to the rules below.
    These are the rules you need to follow:
11. Core tools. They provide a variety of features. They represent the final destination (SSOT, Single Source Of Truth) for information and/or action. You need to place them in the inner dotted circles.
12. Satellite apps. They provide specific features. You use them to reduce friction when capturing information, optimize and/or automate core tools features, and/or connect core tools disconnected from each other. You can avoid satellite apps if the information/action can be added directly to your core tool. You need to place each satellite app in the outer dotted circle.
13. Only one single app is allowed in the center of the ICOR® Framework (ultimate SSOT).
    To better understand this crucial process, we’ve recorded this video for you!

How Can You Leverage Your ICOR® Framework?

The beauty of creating the ICOR® Framework is being able to share something standardized with other people.
That’s what you can get with the Paperless Movement® Membership.
That way, you understand why certain people use specific tools for certain workflows.
You can see and better understand how an app works.
In short, you improve, leverage, and grow.

Conclusions

By using the ICOR® Framework, you’ll identify:

• What you use your apps for: information, action, automation, optimization.
• Redundant tools/apps, being able to remove them.
• Gaps to look for tools/apps that could fill them.
• Disconnections between core tools to look for Satellite apps to connect them.
• Friction points in your core tools to look for satellite apps to overcome them.
  But, the most important outcome will be finding a reply to the questions most people ask the Team Paperless Movement®. The ones I mentioned at the beginning of this article.
  So, whenever a new shiny/cool app appears, check your ICOR® Framework and ask yourself:
• Does it fit in?
• Will it replace any existing app?
• Will it improve my workflow?
• Will it improve my life?
  If none of the answers to the above questions is a radical YES, forget about that shiny/cool app, and don’t waste your time!
  LET’S ICOR®!