Any process missing a piece of its core will eventually fail.

My personal productivity system has followed this pattern for as long as I can remember. There are many people who teach this concept, but Jeff Su has the clearest and best approach that I’ve found. He has a great explanation of this topic that’s well worth your time.

To summarize, C.O.R.E. (C‑O‑R‑E) stands for:

• Capture
• Organize
• Review
• Execute

We all have situations where we’re processing information in a variety of ways. There are moments where it works exactly as you need it to, and other moments where it very much does not.

Think for a minute about the processes you engage with at work. They often follow the same core pattern:

• There’s a submission or intake form (an email, a ticket, an online form).
• A sorting mechanism routes the request to the right team.
• Whoever it’s assigned to reviews, prioritizes, and executes at the right time.

Another example is a common mail system. Someone writes a letter and “captures” it into the handling system (dropbox, mailbox, or post office) where it’s then organized, assigned to a courier, and eventually delivered.

Depending on the intensity and scale of a given system, there might need to be automated solutions to manage the volume of requests in order to deliver and execute on each of them. Any process that is missing a piece of its core will experience friction and will eventually fail – partially or completely.

With this as the foundation, let’s look at the C.O.R.E. productivity model through the lens of Apple’s software and technology.

We’ll walk through:

1. My personal implementation of the CORE system.
2. The Apple apps and tools that support it.
3. A personal example at home.
4. A professional example at work.