Systems, systems

I'm at my usual change it or else point. I like the simplicity of a memo based system. However, I never USE a memo based system. I look at it, smile and move on. Life Balance just isn't an option any more. I tried Shadow again this weekend. I even registered the Mac desktop. In the end, it's more complication than I want. I want a flat, simple system because I really don't have that much stuff to track. So I've reinstalled Todo+. I've moved a bit of my stuff into it and will take a look at moving some of my project materials into it too. I like the fact that I can change fonts on it. And I think it will help me move past the madness here.

I also decided to take another look at SplashMoney. They've upgraded it and looks like it has some nice reporting tools. I'd already decided to ditch QuikBudget again. Just not working for me. I've had problems in the past with SplashMoney so I'm not upgrading until I decide if it works better for me now. I've spent too much money recently on Palm software I'm not going to use.

Solutions

It's an interesting thing, when you have a smooth working system. There's not a lot to report about. I'm not even spending much time writing about it in my system journal. I do a new memo each week and that's what I put week specific actions into. Hard Landscape still goes on the calendar. I haven't had to really use the todo app. I would say that I probably use my "roadmap" for long term planning. It's a large mind map that is next to my computer. I try to add those next actions onto it as I think of them.

I've also been trying to have time specific goals. In the past, I would have said "Put $1000 into savings". Now it reads "Save $1000 by June 1st". And I should be able to do that, since I am working overtime with the idea of putting most of it into savings. When I have that, I can start to focus a bit more on catching up the bills. I've found that focusing on catching the bills up first is a big mistake. You have to have some savings first.

I'm even finding that I can use Quik Budget now. I'm working my way through this first month, to see if the amounts I budgeted are rational ones. It works nicely with Accounts and Loans. This time, I put in just discretionary funds, not things like utilities. I have been using PSDB for my bill paying log, but I think I may go back to memos. It just seemed easier to plan out the bills to pay when I had everything in a memo.

My next project is making a good weekly review into a routine thing. I try to do a quick once over every weekend. It seems to work for now, but I want to make sure I'm not forgetting stuff.

Just a little tweaking

This time, I'm tweaking the title of the blog. I wanted to make it a bit more specific. My focus really is Palm based, so why not just say it?

Anytime I want to change my system now, I try to analyze what is driving it. Sometimes I will let myself install a program, just to look at it, and then remove it when I realize I don't need it. Most of the time, I want to change things because I'm not doing a good review and I have things that are not in my system.

I am considering getting rid of Mac Notetaker again. It's a good program but....the find function in it is lousy. Because it's a proprietary database, ptools find doesn't really work in it. So I have reference material in it that I try and search and it doesn't give me what I want. And that brings us back to the usual choices. I could go with WordSmith, but I've never really liked that program (and there's no rational reason for this.) I will probably go with pedit, even though I'm very fond of PSmemo. I have a Palm with a 4k memo limit. I need to keep longer documents in it. I have all my troubleshooting notes for work in a document that I can't easily search. The problem with that change is that PSlink doesn't work as well for linking in pedit. And that means I may also have to reinstall Acrowiki. I don't have a lot of links, but I do want to be able to link a few things. It just makes things more complex.

My old system used to be ToDo+ with pedit and that's always a possiblity. I'm not ready to make a change that major without thinking it through. I have a real need to focus right now. We have decided on a five year plan, to put together enough money to full time in an RV and travel a bit. It will involve a lot of planning to make it happen and there are lots of unrelated things to clear up in that time. My system needs to be rock solid for this and I don't want to keep shifting it around.