moleskine "hacks"?
dsl
what i liked about the pda [palm tungsten e2] was the size, having
everything [planner, contacts, to do's, reference files, et. al.] in
one small package. what i didn't like about the pda was it's refusal
to synchronize with the desk top and tendencies to crash.
so i went back to analog. i looked at a bunch of different planners
and decided on the moleskine for a variety of reasons. i'm using the
large daily. the pocket daily is too small to have scheduled tasks and
to do items for each day. i've tabbed the months. i have a small
battery of 4x6 index cards in the back pocket for non-date/contact
info.
the address book insert is only marginally helpful. i find it
obstructs my access to the back pocket making access to the 4x6's
difficult. but it is handy to have the contact info with me. i
suppose i could move that info to my cell phone?
i also have a large moleskine pocket folder. it holds all my "getting
things done" project cards in various catagories. i have a 4x6 card
for each project that has that project's key contact info, schedule,
task lists and so on. there are too many of these cards to put them in
the back pocket of the diary/planner.
now i find that i need to carry around multiple books: the diary, the
pocket folder, a note book [for work] and my sketchbook [personal].
juggling this stuff and a cell phone is a real pain.
i could go back to a page runner/franklin type organizer, but i find
them just as bulky, if not more so, and just as unworkable.
anybody else having this kind of problem? how have you handled it?
mikshir
I personally use the 2-item approach: a small weekly-formatted pocket
calendar because there's just no getting away from needing one; and a
pocket plain Moleskine as a combo journal and organizer.
My Moleskine is set up as follows:
* all dialy raw input type entries and sketches go in front to back
* all project plans, goals, things I need to refer to or update go in
the back going forward.
* all next action lists and items go on index cards that I keep in the
Moleskine. Since the envelope in the back is kind of cumbersome for
quick access, I glued a little triangle pocket in the corner of the
front cover and just slip cards in the front. Very convenient to
glance at and keeps my book from getting cluttered by random lists.
* I keep a short stack of post-it notes in the front and back of the
book for quick disposable notes.
* I keep a few postit flags handy on one of the pages to mark pages I
need to refer to constantly.
dsl
google group for the past few days. there are lots of good ideas.
i like the simplicity of your system. the idea of working one kind of
information from front to back and another form from back to front is a
good one and could work for me.
i did go ahead and enter all of the contact phone numbers from the
address book insert into my cell phone. that's helped. it's just a
matter of simplifying the system down in a way that works for me. the
levenger pocket briefcase thing is very convenient for me so i'm kind
of getting vague ideas of a hPDA combined with moleskines...but it's
still brewing....
mikshir
my old PDA is the keeping/updating/maintenance of addresses and phone
numbers. At the moment, I use my pocket calendar (At-A-Glance
mini-pocket which has a section for such things) to store incoming and
oft-used addresses and phone numbers. I then (slowly) enter such
information into my webmail contacts lists so that, in theory, all of
my addresses should be available to me anywhere that has internet. And
of course phone numbers of convenience go in my phone as soon as they
are dialed. Should I ever get a more sophisticated mobile, I may be a
little more comprehensive in what I put in my phone.
I, like you, am still tweaking my system but I've settled on this for
several months now to good effect.
cheers
joshua....@gmail.com
I have settled on the current system (which is GTD-based):
1. I carry a small Moleskine lined notebook for general notes. I 'think
on paper' in this, and sometimes it's input - notes to self, etc.
2. I write next actions and tasks on an index card and put it in the
Moleskine.
3. I keep project lists in Backpack, in the Moleskine, wherever - it
doesn't matter, I just make sure I get to them when I do the weekly
review. I write actions on the index card. The size of the index card
keeps me from getting too crazy with a next actions list.
4. I keep my calendar and my contacts on my iPod. This works
_surprisingly_ well for me. I almost always have this on me; I'll have
it even more often when I get my iPod nano!
This system has worked really well for me. Using a single Moleskine for
all that info is too hard - the iPod really takes a load off.
dsl
trying to do it all in a single analog item is too much. i like the
idea of keeping a sketchbook/journal with me all the time. i used to
do that but fell out of the habit.
what i'm doing at the moment is keeping my calendar and next items [to
do list] in my large moleskine diary/planner. i'll look at keeping my
project index cards into the pocket in the back. but the stack is
pretty thick.....
keeping the basic contact info in the cell phone is working pretty well
for me now. i hadn't expected it to work so well. but when i'm away
from my desk, generally all i need is the person's phone number. d'oh!
Paul D
action lists and as a capture tool, and a Moleskine pocket folder to
carry paper items like receipts, spare hipster cards, etc. The hipster
goes most places with me, the Moleskine Pocket folder resides in my
laptop bag so I don't need to carry it around - and most of what goes
in there doesn't need to be accessed all of the time anyway. It's not
a perfect system, but seems to be OK.
The pocket folder is nice & versatile - perfect for index cards and
receipts, plus it can handle folded 8 1/2 x 11 stuff (like a quick
printout of my Outlook calendar) really well too. Everything's
protected and organized nicely.
Plus it just looks tres cool.