NorthWest Miscellanea

Moleskin planners or books have gotten more and more people excited about
leaving behind the 21st Century writing tools.

However I will always need my Palm for Database-like necessity functionality, such as:
- Contacts
- My Account log-ins (web sites, bank acct log-ins, etc.)
- List of Books to read or Weekend End things to do

But when it comes down to where you are waiting for a friend at a restaurant, or you’re at the park/beach with a couple of hours off, and you need to write some plans, or a high level design for an Application/Web Site, or some “50,000 feet level” (GTD book) projects, my future consists of being a Moleskin book user for anything having to do with relaxed writing needs.

I would have one right now if the Borders down the street carried them, but they don’t. Think: “Modernized volkswagen, or the revamped new
2005 old-style Mustang”, but it’s a writing book, the kind that Hemingway or Picasso used.

And you can still inject some Modern-ness into it by getting a compact Space Pen
(I’ve always got to have a small pen
in my pocket.) This thing is definitely sweet. It makes me almost too giddy to talk about it though. Ok, I need some recovery time.

One of the benefits of GTD is, not so much providing a “Do or Die” System, but instead a smart method of getting stuff off your mind ( such as TO-DO’s, or long term I-might-do-this-moneymaking-project, but I might not) onto paper.

Here’s one example of implementing GTD. (It’s a very exciting one, about ink cartridges):

You know you need a new Ink Cartridge, but there might be several different subtasks needed, and you Do all of these tasks in different places.

1. In your office, you read the printer manual for the exact type of cartridge needed.
You might also make sure that you have the directions and hours of the office supply store. If not, At your Computer, you check the web site for that and write it down.
2. A Communication To-Do, might be required: You might have to ask
your spouse if he/she had already bought it.
3. In Your Car, you drive there to get it.

With a Palm or Pocket PC, it’s easier (than paper planners) to have categories for each context such as Computer, Home, Phone, Run Errand In Car. You select one of the above categories, and then you create all of these sub-To-Do’s, and it makes getting the ink cartridge very fluid and smooth. When you’re in a traffic jam and you have your cell phone, you could both check with your spouse about the cartridge, and you could check with the office supply store, ( even though that was a “computer” task originally ).

When I used to just create a To-Do for buying the cartridge, I thought I’d remember to check with the model of the printer when in the office, or double-check the hours, and then get the printer cartridge. Never happened. I’d always end up standing there at Office Depot, trying to guess or look for my model on the back of the package. I’d give up and then out of frustration buy something else I didn’t need.

Unconsciously I know about all of these other things though, and it’s such an energy-draining, distraction on the psyche when you don’t know if you should be doing something useufl when you’re at the phone with free time, or you’re on the Internet at work, with “spare” research time.

I found out about David Allens’ Getting Things Done book and System, from a post on an unrelated Yahoo Group (which was based on a Windows-based program called InfoSelect, which I used for about a year before realizing it was completely blockading my freedom to organize in my own way, and it was because of its proprietary nature.)

The title, Getting Things Done, left a slightly negative impression on me at first, like it was going to be too left-brain and too structured. I don’t know why. Those words are benign enough.

I had already attempted the Franklin method of putting the A’s, B’s, C’s next to your tasks.
And the Covey approach of designing roles and then creating tasks out of those
didn’t stick with me. (Not that those are bad ideas).
I bought the GTD book, and immediately knew that this was going to fit my style.

It fits naturally with the way the human brain works. When he mentioned the phrase:
“Mind Like Water”, and how GTD allows this state of mind, it was a no-brainer
to keep reading.

I found out that managing small details and putting everything on Paper or PC, and out of your head, is the only way to allow you to remain in the current Moment and thus be able to prevent missing a detail or an opportunity in that All-Important NOW moment. And while not quite being in the Personal Productivity genre, reading this book: Present Moment Awareness, really convinced me that ANY
Action-Organizational book/system that integrated the concept being in the Moment, and “Mind Like Water” and other Buddhist-like ideas, was going to be my Thing.

My big Wake-Up call from the Getting Things Done system, was that merely creating a new task on your Palm or Planner, to do something as seemingly concrete and specific as getting a new ink cartridge for your printer isn’t the best way of “managing this action”, as much as you would think. There needs to be a solid Next Action. More on that later.

Have you ever had to quickly launch Windows Notepad to catch on-the-fly Notes?

- You are listening to an Internet audio clip and a book is mentioned, so you
need to type it in.

- You want to catch some information from a PDF file and the PDF is copy protected
so it won’t let you copy text

etc….

But sometimes you want to step away from this unsaved notepad file to walk the dog, and you don’t want the computer to reset itself, or freeze without saving this Notepad file full of information.

So just save it, but save it in the default folder, and just name it “DelToday.txt” if you know for sure that you won’t need this file anytime after today. This way you don’t start collecting all of these files on the hard drive, and it starts really dragging on your psyche when you have to re-read all of these $%#@! files on some other day when you are trying to clean out your My Documents folder.

Whenever I see a file named: “DeleteToday.txt” (or DelTod.txt), I know I can delete it.

The previous blog about having a solid system for keeping track of your online purchase contact information is one example of a template.

David Allen in Getting Things Done makes suggestions that people have many types of Lists.

• Lists of “Someday/Maybe” projects you want to do,
• lists of videos you eventually want to rent,
• lists of Ideas for a online business, etc.

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