Hi, friend!
I’m Elizabeth Butler, MD, PhD.
I help creative, idealistic professionals build streamlined note-taking and productivity systems to fit their busy lives.
Mindful note taking and productivity
You’re a busy person, doing interesting work. You need a trusted, effective, minimalist system so you can finally feel organized– and free up your mind to get on with doing great things.
You’ve gone down the rabbit holes of online research and come up short. You don’t need a list of keyboard shortcuts or a refresher on the finer points of GTD. You’re tired of reading breathless click-bait articles on “how to be INSANELY productive in just FIVE SECONDS a day” written entirely without irony or self-awareness by childless, single men in their early twenties, with enviable autonomy over their daily work schedules.
You’re an adult, with important work to do and plenty of people relying on you.
You have gifts to share with the world. You’re trying to figure out how you can be productive with limitations and constraints– you don’t have giant swaths of unencumbered time to get your work done. You need to be efficient and effective– while managing to save some time and energy for yourself, too. My job is to help you dig out from underneath information overwhelm so you can get on with accomplishing big things.
Ditch the hustle and burnout: find self-compassion and sustainable progress.
meet your guide
Hi! I’m Elizabeth Butler, MD, PhD.
I help creative, idealistic professionals build streamlined note-taking and productivity systems to fit their busy lives.
Hi there! I’m Elizabeth Butler– a practicing physician, researcher, former humanities professor, researcher, working parent, and creator of the Calmer Notes method for personal knowledge management.
I’ve spent nearly two decades figuring out how busy people can organize information quickly and effectively. Instead of wasting your time searching for lost knowledge and feeling frustrated with scattered thinking, you can get on with creating great things and solving big problems, while feeling less stressed.
Behind the scenes
About my journey
Professor
In my first career, I was a professor and academic researcher. While completing my PhD, I travelled to libraries and museums around Europe and North America to dig through their dusty archives rooms to solve mysteries a few centuries in the making.
Medicine
Then I went to medical school. In my career as a physician, I had to learn how to manage a whole different type of knowledge. Information comes fast and furious in medical training, and you need to adapt quickly so you don’t drown in the firehose of information.
Parent
Kids are the ultimate source of both delight and overwhelm. Once I became a parent, I had a whole new load of information, projects, tasks, and reminders that I had to keep straight on top of work projects.
I’ve been in the trenches of information overload, too. I know what it feels like.
You need help digging out from under the piles of overwhelming information. You need a practical solution customized to actually fit your real life.
Read my interviews
Interview with creativerly
Interview with Bear Notes Blog
Browse My offerings
How I can help
Browse the blog archives, join the newsletter, purchase a course.
Frequently Asked Questions
I know a Dr. Butler! Are you my doctor?
I’m afraid not: Elizabeth Butler is my online alter ego/pen name/alias. I’m a practicing physician, and want to keep this project fully separate from my clinical work.
To keep these parts of my life completely distinct and separate, I’ve borrowed the likeness of a lovely stock photo model (who I’ve decided I’ll vote to play me in the Hallmark biopic of my life 😊) for my online persona.
Do you have a newsletter?
Yes, I send out a weekly newsletter on note taking, digital file organization, and mindful productivity. I’d be delighted to have you on the list. You can join the free newsletter here.
Where can I follow you on social media?
Thanks for your interest! I’m taking a break from social media at the moment: you can find out more about my social media sabbatical in this blog post.
I bought the Calmer Notes course a while ago… how can I access the material again?
First of all– thanks for being an early adopter! I appreciate your support. 😊
If you purchased the course on Gumroad, there are two ways to access the material:
- On your emailed purchase receipt, click through to access the course material from the link in your receipt
- You can login to your Gumroad library to see all your previous Gumroad purchases at a glance.
If you purchased the course on LemonSqueezy (our current payment processor), click through the link provided in your receipt to access the course login page.
If you need help finding your course material, please send us a message via our contact page so our support team can help.
What tools do you use for building your site and blog?
So glad you asked! Here’s a list of my favourite business tools.
Do you offer individual training or one-on-one consulting?
Not at present, but I may offer it down the road… you’re warmly invited to join the wait list to be notified if and when VIP consults become available.
5 common note taking myths
Grab your free pdf guide
Get a free PDF guide to 5 common note taking myths that just might be getting in the way of you building a sustainable personal knowledge management system.
Plus, as a newsletter subscriber, you’ll get weekly, thoughtfully curated links and articles about productivity and personal knowledge management.
