Personal vs client work
Every account gets a Personal workspace. It behaves like any other — tasks, notes, calendar, time — with two differences that shape what it’s for: it can’t be shared, and quick captures land there by default.
The dividing line
Section titled “The dividing line”Ask: would I ever put this on someone’s invoice, or would a client ever ask about it?
- Yes → a client workspace. Anything a specific client is paying for or expecting.
- No → Personal. Your own errands and admin, half-formed ideas, and — importantly — anything cross-client: “send all invoices”, “do the VAT return”, “update the portfolio”.
That last category is the one people get wrong. Cross-client work has no natural home in any client, so it ends up in whichever workspace you had open, and then it’s lost. It’s Personal work: it’s your business’s work, not any one client’s.
Personal as the catch-all inbox
Section titled “Personal as the catch-all inbox”Quick captures on My Day go to Personal unless you pick a workspace, so it doubles as the place things land when you’re moving too fast to decide. That’s the intent, not a limitation — capture beats filing.
Then sort in one pass later, moving anything that turned out to belong to a client. See A weekly review.
It can’t be shared
Section titled “It can’t be shared”Invitations to a Personal workspace are refused. If work in there starts involving someone else, that’s the signal it isn’t personal any more — make a workspace for it and move it.
Your own business as a client
Section titled “Your own business as a client”Many people run a second non-personal workspace for their own company — invoicing, bookkeeping, the website, marketing. It’s a useful split:
- Personal — you, the human. Dentist, renewals, the idea you had in the shower.
- Your company — you, the business. Work with deadlines and, often, time worth tracking.
You can track time and set a rate in it like any client, which is how you find out what your own admin actually costs you.