Archive of March 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
My Organizational System (GTD)
So I've slowly been evolving my organizational system to help me in (my version of) Getting Things Done (GTD). This post is about where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going with it...So way back in 1994/5 I started using EccoPro personal information manager. I used this for several years and absolutely LOVED it. It did calendaring, todo's and notepads. For me this application was absolutely killer because the notpads used an outlining structure which was fantastic for me because I tend to think in outline from (as many others likely do too). Thus I could easily transfer my mental organization to paper/electronic form. Bear in mind this is pre-cellphones/SMS as well as the pre-web days. Unfortunately development of it was dropped and the product effectively whithered away. Oh no! I held on as long as I could and continued to use it, but eventually it became a hassle to try to maintain on newer versions of Windows. Go read the above linked Wikipedia article for the full scoop. Actually it still lives, but progress is glacial.
In the year 2000 I broke down and bought a Palm IIIx organizer for the then lofty price of about $180. This was huge for me as it was lots of money at the time (actually, it still is!), but was easily the lowest price I had seen it at. I really wanted a Palm device well before that, but it I couldn't justify the cost until it came down in price. And then they kept coming out with new models of course, but when the IIIx came out it was the right combination of features (mostly memory) and price. Actually the price went back up over $200 after I bought mine, thus I was quite happy to have bought it when I did.
With my new wonder toy I imported my contacts from EccoPro, gained portable calendar alarms and began to conduct my life with the Palm memo pads replacing the the outlining notes I had previously kept. I missed the nested listing that EccoPro's outlining provided, but I learned to adapt by breaking things into smaller pieces and keeping them in separate topics as necessary. Plus, with third-party applications I gained secure password storage and a gas mileage tracker. The notepad situation was not ideal, but it worked for most everything else I was doing, so life went on. Read more… March 8, 2008 @ 11:05 pm | Category: Brainwork
Friday, March 07, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008