Paper vs Electronic?

Its a dilemma that most people go through when deciding what tools to use for their productivity system (whatever flavour that might be). Some systems force you to use a particular format (which takes the decision away, but invariably means that the system could lack flexibility and customization).

This article suggests using a similar system to myself - USE BOTH. I like the quickness and spontaneity that a freeform piece of paper gives, but anything that happens on that piece of paper get condensed and fed into my electronic system at a later date to allow for archiving. The paper is just short term storage. A piece of paper also doesn't remind you of that meeting that was booked a fortnight ago that you need to travel to.

Each media has its benefits, so why not use both!! There are of course more unusual ways of using both systems at the same time.

[Paper vs Digital Debate... at LifeDev]

Paper based or Electronic?

Its a question that everyone that looked at GTD will have asked. Do I use paper and pen of do I store things electronically?

Fear not the answer is here!! Why not hack a moleskine to be a hard-drive case!

[Building a moleskine hard-drive cover via 43Folders]

Journalling Review

As you know I’ve had a few applications on trial. This post is about the apps I’ve looked at to do with journals. I chose to look at Notebook and Scrivener. From my PC days I was used to OneNote for journaling and Notebook kind of replaced that directly. It looked and felt very similar, but perhaps in a slightly cruder way. I thought I’d struck lucky and found a great tool, until I also tried Scrivener. This is a completely different tool and is geared towards writers. It can, I think, be used to document any kind of project. Its very adaptable and at first glance seems to satisfy my journaling needs for both work and blog topics in one area. The cork board is good to just take an overview of what is going on. After only a few days I found myself dropping the Notebook in favour of Scrivener.

Work journals are written (at the moment) on an index card per week, his seems to be sufficient at the moment and I can normally summarise what I’ve been working on in the whole week in the synopsis area.

Blogging topics can be allocated an index card as ideas appear and then developed as time goes on so that an archive is built up - as they are posted their status changes to DONE which can be seen from the corkboard overview.

Its a new way of working for me and is taking some getting used too, but I feel that I will be happier with this product.

Stationary

The behance action book, looks like a great bit of stationary p0rn! As ever Merlin spotted this and talked about it in a round up post. The double page spread seems to have a lot of the features that I use on printable CEO forms made by David Seah.

After a short browse on google, it appears that they are not available in the UK though, which means that postage will probably be prohibitive

[Remaindered Links from 43Folders]

Good news, Bad news week

This blog experiment (which I'm just picking up again after a fantastic break away with the family) has always been based on the idea that as I finished by planned build up posts, Apple would release Leopard and I'd go and get my first mac. My posts would them continue with the trials I have getting into the mac groove.

I heard a rumour that end of March would be the date of release, but listening to my podcasts this week, it appears that it might be as late as June.

On the flip side, GTD guru Merlin Mann of 43Folders is releasing a new video podcast from Monday. Looking forward to watching him some more.

Keeping track of contacts

I have a system, based on a hacked GTD model that works quite well for me. It needs refining, and I'm holding off on spending too much time on that process, until I get the mac book purchased and learn new tools and applications.

One area that I seem to be the most disorganised in (and it stands out like a sore thumb), is contact management. I don't have a single "master" list of contact information, its spread about. Its not even spread about in similar formats, I've got an A5 filofax, Microsoft Outlook Contacts, GMail contacts, Locknote files and my mobile phone address book. Add to that the Lotus Notes address book of the company that I'm working at too.

Its not even that I know I have to look in the filofax for personal contacts, its really just every where!

So, when the mac arrives, I hope to consolidate all my contact information into a mac based application. The plan is to put all my contact information into Address Book.

What I need to know is - is this the best application to use? Does it allow contacts to have sensitive information protected? Thats what I use my locknote files for.

What do you use?

Remember the Milk

My next big post is going to be about the tools that I am currently using in my system. I was drawn, however to this post about using Remember the milk. I use remember the milk to record a number of lists, mainly @calls & @PC lists from my GTD system.

The reason I chose these lists inparticular is that if I'm looking for things to do on the PC, I'll likely be online so I can check items on RTM. Since the integration of RTM in GoogleCalendar I've also set up some repeat lists (mainly to jog my memory to pay bills etc for the new business). I also have a wishlist for products, books, movies, music that I need to have.

I feel that I'm not utilising RTM fully. One of the tips from the original post (below) suggest using tags to the items as the GTD identifier @calls etc - I can see that working as RTM enables you to view a single tag.

Any other great ideas, please let me know.

GTD with RTM [via lifehack.org]

Coder's Block - Rebooting your day

When it all gets too much and things seem like they are going down the very slippery slope I might try the re-boot your day technique. Seems a pretty sensible idea to trick your brain into starting the day again.

Birth

So what is this project all about? Well over the last 18 months I've been exposed to a great deal of change, creativity and inspiration. Along with my good friend Mark we embarked on the GTD journey, which to a degree I've embraced and use on a daily basis. As soon as you start digging into this area, the host of information, tips, hacks and other systems is overwhelming though. Within Google Reader I was exposed to a huge amount of people & inspiration. At the forefront of this was Merlin Mann and his 43Folders site. I started subscribing to more feeds and listening to more podcasts and soon came to realise that the whole GTD thing is completely adaptable, depending on what you need from it, what tools and time you have available and the type of things that you process.

The big change for me came 6 months ago when the company that I worked for closed our division. I jumped before I was pushed and went freelance - I was lucky to find work immediately. In the time since then I have started my own company and tried to come to grips with all the finances that come attached to that.

It was at this point that I realised that my system, personal finance & everyday tools I use was just a mess, so this year, 2007, is my year of change. I'm going to arrive at my GTD system, I'm going to settle into running my company, I'm going to make the switch from PC to mac and I'm going to be more creative.

I'm starting a few creative projects this year, and documenting my strive for the uber mac life will be one of them.