GTD and Levenger Circa notebooks

[Sproles]

I am intrigued by the GTD concept. I LOVE my Moleskine AND my Levenger
Circa notebooks. I am about to take a new job and would love to
incorporate the DYI planner, GTD and the Levenger Circa notebooks all
in one heaven-sent planner/project system for me. Any thoughts on how
this could be done.

Remember - I am a ROOKIE/NOVICE at this DYI Planner and GTD
systems...be gentle! :-)

David

[Scott]

Levenger portable punch without the guide will punch holes in the top
of a vertically oriented 3x5 card perfectly. That gives you both circa
and hipster functionality at the same time.

[Nansense]

You can print any forms from the DIY planner and punch them with a
Circa punch. You may want to start by printing some calendars, the GTD
flowchart, and getting some dividers to help organize project outlines
and action lists. I print out from Palm Desktop.

For years, I've been organizing with a Palm (IIIx, IIIc, and now T3)
and Palm Desktop. I abhor redundancy, but I haven't figured out a way
to eliminate paper completely! In fact, I've recently brought in *more*
paper, since I found I needed full-sized sheets to give me an overview
that the 2.5" screen couldn't, for project planning. I've also started
using notebook software, because a scattering of Palm memos and Word
documents, without any consistent naming system, just wasn't showing me
the information I needed to see when I needed to see it.

So here's how I use Circa. I have 2 letter-size notebooks (with Circa
divider tabs), a couple junior size, and a pack of Circa-punched index
cards. (Levenger makes ones with a perforated edge, so you can detach
the "holes" and have a perfect 3x5 card.) One large notebook is my
daily work notebook. Daily schedule at front, followed by sections for
goals (and progress records), meeting records, a supply of blank
sheets, and a couple sections for various reference materials I need
for my job (the work "manual" I'm writing for myself, departmental
checklists).

Every morning I sync my Palm to my work desktop, update Tasks until I
have just the ones I want to see that day, then print out the day's
schedule from Palm Desktop in 8.5 x 11, punch it, and put it at the
front of my notebook. That gives me an appointment schedule down the
left side of a page, and the day's to-dos down the right. When I'm
really trying to track my time, I use the printed schedule as my "goal"
and mark the actual time spent on the paper. That's a great way to get
a wakeup call. The front section of the Circa notebook becomes a
page-per-day calendar from these Palm printouts. If I read an
interesting or inspiring article on the Web, I print it out, punch it,
and insert it where I'll see it the next morning. I might move it along
through the book for a few days, and then when I'm done using it,
archive it in a file folder or elsewhere in the Circa notebook.

Palm Desktop also also prints out any Memos *attached* to those tasks.
For example, you have a task called Place Amazon Order, with a memo
holding the books you've been wanting. When you print, you get your
shopping list on a separate sheet! I usually don't punch or save all
these memos, because I don't rely on them as my main note-taking
resource. But I like to attach discussion agendas to tasks like Get
Quote from Caterer; the Memo contains the list of stuff I need to ask
the caterer about. The agenda prints out, and you can take notes on it
and then Circa punch it. Instant record! If I weren't using notebook
software for goals and project planning, I would do something like
attach my goals to a daily task so I'd see the printout first thing in
the a.m.! If you use a physical tickler file or inbox for GTD, these
printed memos could go in there.

For discussions about ongoing projects at work, I often type into the
project's outline in notebook software instead of a Palm Memo or
handwriting notes. Other times, one party takes notes in an email
message and sends it around. Either way, at the end of the day, I print
from the notebook software and print out significant emails, punch and
store them in the appropriate notebook section. (I don't do that on a
regular schedule, but if I go GTD all the way I'll make updating and
printing out my software notebook part of weekly review.)

The other large Circa notebook has a section for each project. That's
where I keep printouts from notebook software, emails, etc. When a
project's done, I usually archive the pages in a hanging file system.

I keep one junior circa on my desk for quick notes; the other junior
circa is my personal journal. Once I started using Circa for work, I
switched from wonderful European stitched journals (Exacompta most
recently), to Circa for journaling, too. Sacrificing elegance for
efficiency, I can write something of a personal nature at work on a
junior page and put it in my personal journal later, and vice versa.
The Circa system also lets me insert printed materials (2-up, cut in
half) into my junior journal. The Circa index card notebook stays in
whatever bag I'm carrying. I don't use it as an HDPA because I don't
see myself printing on index cards. My goal is to keep only blank cards
in it. As soon as I write on a card, I take it out and put it in the
appropriate notebook, throw it away when I'm done, or take the punched
strip off and "beam" it!

The beauty of Circa, to me, is that it doesn't matter how info is
generated; I can keep printouts from the Palm, the Web, email, a word
processor or software notebook, "third-party" papers, and handwritten
notes in the same notebook.

For household maintenance and shopping, I'm a Flybaby
(www.flylady.net), and I've started keeping my Fly routines in a Circa
on the kitchen counter, using Circa sheet protectors. I print out the
DIY monthly calendar, enlarged to letter-size, as a household calendar
for that book.

I'd love to be an index card/moleskine person, and when I recently
revamped my system, I bought a pack of index cards and started
capturing all my goals, ideas, and tasks on them. I loved writing on
them, and filled 100 cards in about 1/2 a week, but I found I didn't
like spending time shuffling them around, and I ended up rewriting the
information in a notebook or on other cards anyway. I can't really do
paper-only, because my handwriting doesn't hold up, even after
relearning how to write using italic principles. I can write legibly in
my journal, but not when brainstorming or taking discussion notes.
Also, I could never give up the Palm address book: I keep all my
contact info updated and synchronized on all my computers and carry it
with me on the Palm. I also keep stuff like passwords and frequent
flyer info in the Palm, and somehow feel it's more secure in a
password-protected memo than in a moleskine or on a card. but I'm sure
I'm completely deceiving myself. Finally, I'm moving in the direction
of using my Palm in place of a laptop. On a recent vacation, I was able
to surf the Web for weather and restaurant info, keep up with urgent
email and get some work done by getting the Palm online via my
cellphone and using a portable keyboard and Documents to Go. I know I
won't carry around an HDPA in addition to carrying a Palm, so no HDPA.
(I just hope I never lose sight of the fact that I could have done the
same thing with a moleskine, a phone card, postcards, and a few stamps
in the pocket...and this print-version World Wide Web called a
"newspaper.")

Palm tasks are my primary method of information capture. I like being
able to type something once only, then sync to my desktop and paste or
drag the text to a document, email, etc. If I spend too much time
tinkering with my system, it's definitely with re-categorizing,
re-prioritizing, and re-sorting Palm tasks. I still haven't settled on
a system. My current goal is to use the GTD @contexts for tasks and
come up with a set of categories for events that will become iCal
calendars so I can publish them for work, family and friends, etc. But
having iCal erase my T3 this week, and then reading the iCal discussion
board on the Apple site this month has scared me off iCal for a while.
PD may be unattractive, but it's at least stable and predictable.

Since I'm on a Mac, I would love someday to use all-Apple all-the-time
with my Palm: iCal/Address Book/.Mac, so I can use Mac OS X Services
and completely replace the Palm Desktop memos with my notebook software
(currently Hog Bay)...maybe try StickyBrain, too. But iCal is the
stumbling block. I've also looked at MacJournal, which is great for
generating blogs from notebook notes, but overall Hog Bay is better for
outlining and planning, so I'm switching over to it from Circus
Ponies. (I actually love CP. The indexing, linking, and outlining
features are awesome, but I couldn't get printouts and exported text to
look good, so I'm still shopping.)

So my current system is Apple Mail/Palm Desktop/Hog Bay Notebook/Circa.


I'm a GTD rookie, too. I've been gradually integrating some of the
principles (just the ones I know will work for me). I'm currently
working on the contextual way of categorizing tasks. That's really new
to me, but I think it's going to help me keep more projects moving more
quickly.

By the way, you can also get Circa-type notebooks from
www.rollabind.com (that's the actual manufacturer), and Staples.com.

My main piece of advice is to spend some time thinking about your own
personality and needs before you begin. Write down what your current
"system" is, and where you spot any weak points. Will GTD help fill
them? Do you need to start over -- then plunging gung-ho into a preset
system like GTD or Covey might be just what you need. On the other
hand, if you're already doing things that work for you, don't abandon
them. Don't try to do something you know you won't do or won't get you
where you want to be.

N

[Sproles]

N: WOW! Thank you VERY much for your response. I have been members
of MANY different web groups and I have responded to things before and
know what kind of time it takes to think out, type out and respond like
you did. VERY helpful. I am printing your response out and reading it
on my trip this week. This trip that I am taking is going to determine
whether or not I change jobs to need this new system. SO - your
response is very timely. Thanks again and I will keep you posted.

FYI - you know that there are more economical alternatives to LEVENGER
CIRCA - Rollabind is the name brand and is much more reasonably priced.

Thanks again!

David

[gandoe]

I agree - WOW! That was an excellent post - especially as I'm in the
middle of restructuring/reorganizing my own GTD implementation.

I will say, however, that I was a little disappointed. One of the
elements I'm building into my new system is a process, structure and
tools for journaling/ project workspaces / unstructured information
that relates to a project. I've been investigating a number of
different software options, from DayNotez, to NoteStudio, to Zoot, to
TiddlyWiki, as a way to maintain my journal/project-related workspaces.
So when you mentioned "notebook software" a few times as part of such a
well thought out process...I started gettting really excited. I'm
scanning through your post, looking for the name of the
software....then I find that you use a Mac. Shoot. :-)

Seriously, though - thanks for taking the time to describe the tools
you use to enable your process. I too am going to print this out and
study it!

Ed

[Stephen Pitts]

So the consensus is that your message was excellent, but if it's not too
much trouble, I'd like to hear more about flybaby. Right now I don't
know where to put routines in GTD. E.g., right now I'm studying
Japanese, so ideally I'd like to spend 30 minutes every day on
vocabulary, do X amount of grammar per week, etc.

For weekly tasks I have an Allen-esque checklist (do laundry, update
blog, work through one chapter of grammar book) and update the
appropriate context todolists during my weekly review, but for things I
want to do every day (plod my way through a Japanese novel), it still
doesn't go together yet.

Also, there's the danger of the ever-expanding routine. Put a few things
together that sound nice -- "oh, just work on this a little every day"
-- and suddenly your routine takes the whole morning, more than the 1
1/2 to 2 hours between when I wake up and when I have to be at school.

Stephen

[Nansense]

Stephen: I'll tell you more about FlyLady and some things I've learned
about routines this evening -- no time to post now. I majored in
Japanese a few lifetimes ago, and one of my constant someday/maybes is
to get back to it. The daily stuff, when it's something for personal
benefit, and not something that has consequences like garbage piling up
in the sink, is the toughest. You might have to build in some
motivation, like starting a Japanese book club for which you HAVE to
read x number of pages a week. Maybe we can help each other!

Here's the FlyLady Web site for now: http://www.flylady.net.

Ed: Microsoft makes a notebook program. I can go more into why I found
that type of interface helpful later, too.

Here's a link for ya:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858031033.aspx

-N

[triciawriting]

I use the Circa stuff from Levenger (and have some Rollabind as well)
and would like to add that the paper quality of Circa is far superior
to the Rollabind. At home, I use fountain pens and the Circa paper is
scrumptious to use. The Rollabind paper is more for quickly-dashed off
notes written in pencil or a roller ball that will be thrown away (and
definitely not for fountain pens).

N.'s post was thorough, but I'll just add that one of the features of
Circa is that different sizes of punched paper can be used in the same
notebook (as long as it holds the largest of the sheets you want to
keep). I use several Circa notebooks for writing notes and they hold
not only the trad letter size, but hand written paper from pads
(punched), junior size, cards... anything that I've written a note on
that I want to keep and that can be punched. (I can't see why this
wouldn't work with Rollabind, though, too.)

Tricia

[Leslie .]

On 6/16/05, Nansense <nanb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You might have to build in some
> motivation, like starting a Japanese book club for which you HAVE to
> read x number of pages a week. Maybe we can help each other!
>
> Here's the FlyLady Web site for now: http://www.flylady.net.
>

Flylady in my opinion is a cult, a cult, I tells ya. Actually there are lots
of offshoots of Flylady for those who don't exactly fit the rather rigid mold.
I'd love to see a blend of GTD and Flylady, especially for those of us who
work outside the home.

I too studied Japanese way back when (shortly after the Earth cooled)
and want to get back to it, so would also love to see a prodding-to-
study-Japanese list.

Leslie

[mylene]

Well,

FlyLady inspired me to set up something like sending myself reminders
of routine tasks or special tasks I have to do every now and then. So
until I establish a routine, e.g. to fill my logbook at work, I have a
daily e-mail sent to me, saying: Write in my logbook, just before I go
home.
Because I have not always my calendar reminders on, this works great
for me (otherwise a reminder would do :)
Also every morning I get an email that states: Morning routine - and I
keep it (starred) in my gmail inbox until I finished every single
item.
(And I love the FlyLady baby-steps, and 15 minute things - I'm trying
to integrate them into GTD as well....)

Mylène (who never studied Japanese - but tries to learn English :D )

On 6/17/05, Leslie . <fast...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/16/05, Nansense <nanb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

<cut>

> I'd love to see a blend of GTD and Flylady, especially for those of us who
> work outside the home.
>
> I too studied Japanese way back when (shortly after the Earth cooled)
> and want to get back to it, so would also love to see a prodding-to-
> study-Japanese list.
>
> Leslie
>

--
Mylene

Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com/friend/mylene