A5 and GTD

After some thought, A5 has won out as my main GTD app. I will continue to use Note Studio as it works nicely for charting my work flow and status. I also plan to use Volker's reference book as a place to stash reference material. For those who haven't seen it, it is basically set up like an A-Z file holder. I have one book for the current catalog I'm working on and my reference stuff. I am considering a page where I track which items are on which page of each catalog. Could make finding them easier in the next catalog.

I went back to A5, so that I had a strong calendar based view of my week. I've learned I need to work from a weekly view. Part of me thinks it's wasteful not to use the built in applications (although that doesn't seem to apply to the built in memo app.) I like the simplicity of A5. So I've reinstalled it and started working in it again. The goal, after all, is the WORKING part. I've gotten a feel now for how much structure I need at this job, so I am more comfortable that it can provide enough for me.

A close call

I had a very close call this week. I decided to play around with Volker's GTD templates. They are nice. When I started trying to move things into them, I found myself completely lost. I couldn't find where I'd put things. It was almost scary. And then, to make things worse, I decided to encrypt the main book. Decided I didn't like it and tried to decrypt it. It worked for everything except my main page. And on that page, it wouldn't take my password. Finally, at home, it dawned on me to just overwrite it all with the backup from the morning. That fixed the whole thing.

I was taking a look at PSLink today and thought that I could easily use that with memos and A5 and go back to the system in place before Note Studio. Again, I fought that one off. There are lots of ways to implement GTD and I've tried a lot of them. The thing is, it's not the software. It's the habits. Whenever I feel that I'm not in control, I throw software at it. It would be nice for me to use the built ins and A5. I've tried it. I can do it. I really do like the way I have Note Studio set up. I enjoy using it on the Palm and the desktop. I'd like, for once, to just focus on that tool and see just what I can come up with. I should be able to have a tool that is easy to use and helps me with my weekly review. I will try, at some point, to really describe what I've come up with and take better screen shots. For now, I'm still working on that "well grooved tools" part and trying to use what I have already in place.

Amazing

The internet is an amazing place. Thanks to a reader, Ray, I now have a licensed copy of Note Studio! I've been using A5 and pedit with some success. I've just really missed the free form style of Note Studio. And, since I have a PC at work that I can install software on, I can even use the desktop at work. I reloaded all my "books" and tweaked the nav bar a bit. Since I had the system duplicated in memos, I just copy the new stuff over. I'm waiting a bit, before I post about the system, until I decide if it needs any addtions. I found some gorgeous fonts for OS5. I'm using Garamond, which is my all time favorite font.

I think the biggest problem for me is whenever I use a system to handle Hard Landscape (a calendar of sorts) and another system for Next Actions. I like to have everything in a single place, so that I'm not looking everywhere. It just feels fragmented somehow. When I've used todo based apps (like Todo+ and Life Balance), I've always put the dated stuff into them as well. Now, I just have a page for dated items. In my new job, I don't have a lot of these. I have the big deadline looming for the catalog. And I have a weekly meeting to attend. The rest seems to be keeping the workflow on track. Some days I just write, some days I knit. Both jobs need to be done (since the knitted items are projects for the catalog.)

One of the things I have yet to incorporate into Note Studio is a great tip I had in an old post from Harry Larsen. He uses an "electronic tickler" file on his Palm. It's just a memo. You start with a list of items that need to be completed within a certain month. Then, you add items that need to be completed on a certain day within that month. They may be several years down the road. It's just one more way to make sure that things don't fall through the cracks.

Tomorrow will be my first Weekly Review with the new system. I'd planned to spend some time goal setting, as there are goals related to the new job that I need to write down somewhere. What I am trying to keep foremost in my mind is the idea of "well grooved tools". I want to have a system that works and that I don't need to think about. Tweaking this much has been useful, in that it's made me think about what I need from a system. Now, I just want to use it. For this same reason, I've gone back to Accounts and Loans for my financial stuff. (I added Quik Budget again, but I never know how long I'll leave that one installed.) Splash Money is a nice app. I just don't seem to trust it somehow. It's the same issue I'm going through right now about which MP3 player I want to register, Pocket Tunes or Aeroplayer. Both do similar things. In this case, they even cost the same. I like the simplicity of Aeroplayer and the fact that it takes up a lot less space. I like how Pocket Tunes organizes the songs. One or the other will win out this weekend.

Electronic tickler file

I found something the other day, in a printout I had from a Harry Larsen post. He talked about an electronic tickler file. Basically, it's a memo. You have headers for each month of the year. Under it, you put whatever it is you want to remember, with a date if it has one. It doesn't matter what year it is. It all gets filed by month. It gives you a central place to look, during your review and see what is coming up. Most of the items I have in there are bill due dates and it is a simple thing to turn them into todos, so that I can view them in A5.

The A5, pedit, ptools combo is working very well. All the planning stuff is is memos and I use ptools to put them into either todos (undated) or datebook (date/time specific) entries. This helps me to keep collecting and processing separate. I also keep my Agenda items in memos. This is just my second weekly review with this system, so I'm going to sit down today and take time for a good, long review. I still don't have a lot on my plate at work, although it is going to start ramping up pretty quickly now. I moved almost all my home projects to someday/maybe as I haven't been working on them anyway. Will take a fresh look at them. Some do require me to budget money for them (like redoing the upstairs.)