Paper reminder file

Here's the other piece of my new system, not as tested as the rest. It's a paper reminder file. I use a large sized index card box. Inside, I have the "43 folders" (1-31, and Jan.-Dec.) plus a set of A-Z dividers. The first part I use exactly like a standard GTD tickler file. Any reminders are put on index cards and I review those each day. I am using this mostly for bills right now, although I do toss in any receipts or other items that I enter into Accounts and Loans. The A-Z sections are for reference items. For example, I can write down the author and name of books I'm interested in and toss that in the B section. When I go to the library, I pull out this card and take it with me.

I could set this up in a Palm based system, but it couldn't handle things like receipts. I know I could do them in 2 minutes, but I don't always get to them immediately. This reminder file fits nicely next to the computer and serves as an inbox for many things. I'm happy with the way it's working out.

This seems as good a place as any to mention that I'm not doing any of my checkbook stuff on the computer any more. My bank files won't load into the older version of Quicken on the PC and when I use .qif files it can cause duplicates. I have a nice program for the Mac called Budget that I never seem to use. So I have gone to Accounts and Loans, as I can check off items as cleared and then do a reconciliation with my bank statement. Splash Money can do a nice job of this, but I've found ANL to be more stable and I like the way you can send reports over as memos. Works for me and is a clean, simple program to use.