6) Organize your notes
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This is a two part answer and the answer is never the same for two totally different people. I spent many years thinking of perfect solutions, when there are no perfect solutions. Even though I believe in principles which can work for everyone, the means or method may not. Want to watch a cool video that explains this in unique way.
I used to be a big time list maker, note taker, write on a calendar and planner kind of guy. About a year ago, I completely went digital with all my lists and to do’s and everything else. Before that I read David Allen’s GTD book, and I decided to try it with paper and folders. The system worked, but so many of my projects didn’t work that way. I was using Basecamp to work on my biggest current project, and I had found Backpack to be so useful in managing just about everything else. Well I love 37 signals aforementioned products and use them more than any other applications except Google. I don’t plan on stopping my use of them, but actually probably increasing it. What I did realize a few months back was notebooks and small pocket notepads are still the best way for me to capture a quick list, idea or thought. It is still the best way for me to draw out a mindmap or brainstorm a project to determine next actions. I was inspired yet again by a very digital guy, who still says the pen and pad trump typing in a web based application. If it takes me 5 minutes to locate my laptop, open it, wait a second to refresh my wireless connection, open up backpack, find the appropriate page and then type out my thought, it will always lose to grabbing my moleskin notepad out of my back pocket or my notebook and getting the thought out of my head. Earl Nightingale was famous for saying that ideas are like wet slippery fish. I have found that to be true. The only substitute for the Moleskin back pocket notepad for me, has been using the digital recorder on my cell phone. The only problem I encountered was that when I did a weekly review, which was about as often as I would check my little digital notes to self, I would have to replay the message and type it out into backpack. I didn’t like the extra step. It wasn’t my typing skills either. I type over 45 WPM, which isn’t ground breaking but it’s not slow either.
I have decided to use Backpack more for reference, personal projects, sharing pages with customers (works great to develop a word press site- although I’m experimenting with Basecamp for that right now) and someday maybe categories. I use my large moleskin notebook to record video ideas, blog architecture, mindmaps of my marketing plan and many other things. I use my small notepad to list my next actions for the day and to make quick notes throughout the day. I take both of these and review them as collection buckets during my weekly review session (for GTD’ers). I am trying to use Tim Ferris note taking system linked above, but I haven’t mastered the techniques or organization just yet. I use a new page for each day in my small notebook.
GTD suggests that you limit your amount of collection buckets. This is hard to do in a digital world but right now I’m trying to work within these parameters.
- Gmail- Incoming messages, outgoing messages, waiting for, read/reviews, and next actions
- Google Reader- I read my feeds with this tool and use share and star as my filtering mechanism
- Delicious- it helps to have some broad tags like toreview, toread, toblog more on this in a future post
- Backpack- helps me stay on top of personal projects, customer projects and someday maybes
- Physical inbox- I still get mail, papers, business cards and other non-digital items that must be reviewed
- Large Moleskin- project notes, ideas, creative development, mind maps
- Small Moleskin- daily notes, reference, passwords to be indexed, phone numbers to be indexed
- Whiteboard- I have one behind my desk to record ideas when I’m working at my computer
A case could be made for Stumble Upon, if you really want the community to work as it should. I’m not there yet.
Also I like to review my reference folders using a File Map. If any name on the list prompts me with an open loop, I’ll take it through the GTD process.
Hope this helps. Maybe it’s not for you, but maybe it is for you.
4 Comments
January 9th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I agree that even in the iPhone era, it’s tough to beat a small notepad and pen to capture ideas while on the go.
For the reasons you mention (consolidating buckets) I use Smartsheet.com as a way to manage tasks and reduce the amount of e-mail I have to deal with. The update request feature lets me generate an e-mail from Smartsheet asking for information. It works great with clients or people outside your company. It was easy enough to use with my not-so-tech-savvy mother when planning our family Christmas party. In the e-mail is a simple link where the person can click and enter the information which goes right back into my master sheet (e.g. ‘yes I’m bringing jello salad’)
That way, I eliminate the back-and-forth and it’s easy for the person on the other end to update because they don’t have to sign up, login, etc.
Thanks for the post!
January 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for the info. I will have to tag smartsheets in delicious and check it out soon. I haven’t found Google docs and forms to be sufficient for collaboration yet. Maybe they will improve it and it could do some of what you’re talking about.
Thanks for reading.
January 10th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Nice post Bryce! For those of us who prefer to use paper & pencil (or pen), there are many systems out there. Agreed that none of them are perfect; each will find his/her own.
A few years back, I developed a system that many people have found useful, especially for taking notes during business meetings. You can find out more about it here: http://www.mightynotes.net
Would appreciate any feedback.
- Rich
January 10th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I’ll check it out. I just tagged it in delicious.
Thanks for reading!