It’s been a while since I’ve said anything about lifehacking — the art of getting things done efficiently through an almost martial arts approach to calendars, inboxes, and to-do lists. There are far wiser voices than I — David Allen’s 43 folder approach is one I looked at and rejected as too paper based — and some make for pretty interesting reads I highly recommend.
The heart and soul of my to-do list is the 3×5″ index card and its leather companion, the pocket ….I don’t know what to call it …. leather sleeve? pocket PDA? I these little wallet-like leather sleeves hold about ten blank cards, a few business cards, hotel room keys, subway cards …. and look quite spiffy poking out of one’s shirt pocket if I must say so.
I got into the habit of carrying one thanks to my best friend, a surgeon who is constantly in need of something to jot down information on the fly. I’ve gone through three or four — ranging from fancy alligator skin ones to my current clunky, but heavy-duty Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase.
So, if your New Year’s Resolution was to get your you-know-what together, this is a good start.
How would you rate it compared to the Molskine?
I’m sure it’s old news to everyone, but http://lifehacker.com is a great blog. According to Reader I only actually read 10% of their stuff, but there is lots of good stuff over there.
My current attempt at keeping track of life is a little spiral bound notepad and a pen. It’s working reasonably well so far.
Moleskine is a notebook (got one of those too). Index cards — way different. I can expatiate later.
Lifehacker is a great blog. So is Merlin Mann’s http://www.43folders.com
I’m on my third Moleskine. Haven’t graduated to putting to-dos on the Blackberry – takes too long.
I use a wiki … it’s like an online white board the way I use it. I break things down into a couple of pages: client whiteboard, partner whiteboard, people to ping, this week, internal projects. I set it as my browser home page so it’s the first thing I see each morning.
This is the first time I have ever felt really organized, because I have to read it and have to change it each day to reflect the changes that happen. Everyone finds their own water … this is mine.
I always thought this one was good.
http://pocketmod.com/app/index.html
and it meant that I didn’t need to buy the children their own PDA/smartphone (they only want it to play games)
I’m a sometime hipster PDA devotee (at least until the iPhone gets some %*^&% to-do list functionality), myself, and I gotta say — the single best technological advance for using that system is the Fisher Space Pen. Perfect companion to your Pocket PDA.
I just keep everything in my head. That works, right? Right??
Writing on the back of your hand is very professional and tells people you are too busy to stop and care. Finger string seems out of style though.