Analogue Planner and Notebook

When you think about it, the only real thing you need on a pda is a calendar and a notebook/todo-list. These are things you absolutely need with you as you are out and about. When meeting someone, or when receiving an important call from work, it is essential that you successfully schedule things. The only way to do this is to have a planner with you at most times. But this does not need to be sync\’d with google calendar or anything. It just needs to be a calendar.

Similarly, for your soft landscape, you need a notebook to capture ideas and a to-do list so that you can get done what you need to get done when you are out and about.

Checking email, and twittering, and searching for donut shops nearby are all great things to be able to do, but for the most part they are not necessary. With better planning, you can do this kind of information gathering when sitting at your computer. But scheduling an appointment for work, and jotting down a great idea, or looking at your todolist can\’t be all taken care of simply through better planning, but instead require a ubiquitous kind of attention.

That being said, one can make the argument that neither the calendar nor the notebook are necessary either. With better planning, or simply by dealing with delayed gratification, wrongly made appointments can be changed, ideas can be written on napkins, or remembered later, or forgotten.

For systemsally, the basic level of functional I want to have out and about is the planner and the notebook. Interestingly, a paper notebook is way more functional than any smartphone\’s notebook feature. With a paper notebook you can write much more quickly, freely, and you can even draw and make mindmaps.

The system: Forgo the smartphone. Keep a cellular phone nearby (expect a system on this soon), for your telephone needs, but do not use anything digital when you are out and about. Instead, carry two moleskine large sized notebooks. One, the weekly planner, the other, a lined notebook. They are much more cumbersome physically than a smartphone, but infinitely less cumbersome mentally and psychically than a smartphone.

The advantages of this system are many:

1. You don\’t lose a $200-400 investment if they get lost or stolen
2. You drive much more safely because you don\’t have anything cool to play with
3. You can be much more creative with your ideas, drawings, and lists
4. It\’s classy
5. You don\’t have the psychic burden of being connected all the time
6. You are forced to be more organized when you do sit down at your portable gtd station at home or in the cafe

I\’m sure there\’s much more. Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Writing your systems down, i.e. Journaling

“The Garage Clicker Fail,” as I will now be calling it, is the perfect demonstration of why keeping a systems blog (or a journal of your thoughts) is so useful. Obviously, leaving the clicker in the car is a more perfect system than carrying it on your person. Jacob was kind enough to comment on the post, but I had already made the shift. In fact, it was right after my post that I realized that keeping the clicker in the car was the obvious choice.

In writing it down I realized that I was basing my clicker-in-the-pocket choice on something someone else had said. It was my laziness that kept me stuck in that view, and it was the investigation and awareness of the system that showed me precisely where my delusion was. While the garage clicker is a minor thing, the process I went through is exactly what anyone goes through with anything, including partying and taking care. Bringing awareness to it reveals what parts of a system are good and true and insightful, and what parts are based on fear, preferences, laziness, or idiosyncracy. My friends, this is the primary reason I like writing about systems…you can actually learn a thing or two about yourself.

But, in the case of the garage clicker, the choice was clear once I thought about it. Many things in life aren’t that clear and simple, however. For example, in wanting to have a fun time, how can I know if hanging out in a rotted factory with indoor fireworks and broken glass dance floors is a good choice or not? I agree, this may not be so clear. Most people would agree that it’s not a good choice, but maybe most people are wrong, or maybe carrying the clicker on your person is better in some situations.

The system is this: whatever you do, whether you think of yourself as a systematic person or not, write down or share the decisions you make and why. Be open to discovering your brilliance, and your stupidity. Be open to changing your system when new truths (or previously unseen truths) become available. Be firm when everything has been scrutinized and it is still clear to you, that at least for you, the decision you make in a particular situation is based on wisdom and compassion. Be open to the fact that what is appropriate for you may not be appropriate for someone else and vice versa. Be open to the fact that you have some wisdom to share with other people and that done in the appropriate way, it is your obligation to help that other person see the light and vice versa.

The secondary system is this: do this journaling with other people in a blog called “System Sally” and let them call you on your lies, and stand up for your truth when it’s clear to you. Be an advocate for good systems.

‘Current’ Playlist

This is a great meta-system for thinking about various things. Many things that we use in the digital age offer organizational systems–I’m thinking here of the playlist feature in iTunes, Miro, etc–that can be applied to other digital programs as well as things in the analog world we have been using all along.

Two examples of this are books and recipes. We can have a library of books, or a library of recipes, but we can create ‘current’ playlists of the books currently in rotation, or the meals we are most likely to be preparing this season. Having a ‘current’ playlist for anything is a great way to stay organized, stay current, and yet keep the large library healthier by seeing it for what it is.

Another application of this is Facebook and friends. There have been some great articles about Facebook and how it is changing the way we have friends (like the fact that they can never really go away with Facebook, but in real life sometimes old acquaintances are supposed to go away). Instead of de-friended someone on Facebook, we can simply keep them in our “library” of old friends, but create a ‘current’ playlist of people that are really the ones at the center of our active social life. Facebook now has this feature, and I recommend, just for your own sanity creating a ‘current’ friend playlist. When posting to your wall, you can also set permissions, so that really only people on your current playlist will get your updates. It is not important for your high school classmates to know everything about you and your state of mind.

With books, it is helpful to have a current playlist. Rarely does anyone just read one book at a time. Keep a stack of ‘current’ reads separate from your library so you can more quickly pick up a book and read it. I have three ‘current’ lists though. ‘current’ stories, ‘current’ ideas, and ‘current’ injunctions. Stories are novels. Ideas are philosophy, history, cultural theory, anything that gives you information or helps you work with new ideas. Injunctions are how-tos, self-helps, way-of-life stuff that helps your life in a direct way. Regardless, keeping a list of current injunctions, ideas, and stories can help us clarify where we are in life, what we are looking to understand currently, etc.

You could also take the playlist idea further and create playlists with books already in your library, recipes in your recipe box, social contacts in your facebook file. Just like creating a “fun mix for cleaning the kitchen,” or “dance party ‘04″ in iTunes, we might have a ’struggling with foucault and early christian mystics’ playlist, or ‘obsessed with bhutanese food year’ recipes.

The short post: Playlists are a great idea that came about to serve our music listening needs, but the meta-idea is a great system for almost anything. Also, having a current playlist is a great meta-system for organizing and separating our libraries from our current likes.

A Portable GTD Station

Here is a system for creating a portable Getting Things Done station:

• Get two milk crate style file drawers. Fill them with your action files (next actions, today, waiting for, someday, read/review), your tickler file (43 folders), and your general filing sections from A-Z. Keep extra files in the back.
• Get a small 3×5 card holder for storing used 3X5 cards and business cards that you’ve used for note taking.
• Have a metal inbox and outbox.
• Get a brother labeler
• Have a paper clip holder (with the magnetic rim)
• Get a small metal container and fill it to the brim with unlined 3×5 cards
• Get a metal jar containing a letter opener, scissor, pen, pencil, and eraser.
• Get a box of binder clips.
• Other general supplies can be stored in shoe boxes. These are ruler, rubber bands, staple remover, thumb tacks, calculator, staples, stapler, extra pens, stamps, scotch tape, checkbook, passport, social security card, birth certificate, packing tape, business cards,
• It’s also nice to have a portfolio thing so that for job interviews you have a nice way to protect cv/resumes and have a pad of paper.
• your own trash bin (this is revolutionary)
• your own recycling bin.
• a strong burlap or cloth bag for your portable library of books.

Once you have acquired all of these items, you should be good to go. Literally, with two or three trips you can have your office move with you. Throw it in the car (if you have a hatchback, even better, because you can actually do your weekly review in the car if you need to), and move to where you need to. GTD: Never leave home without it.

Internet

Do not use the internet.

You may say that this is an absurd system. But here’s the idea. First, get all of your internet systems in place. Know how many inboxes you have, know what websites you like visiting, know your basic way around various knowledge centers (like wikipedia). In other words, first become an expert of your internet life, so that you can be on the internet in a completely conscious way. This way, you can make the clear decision when and why and how you will interact with your internet life.

The advantages of this system are that you will gain the most benefit from the internet without wasting any time, you can be simultaneously tech-savvy and luddite, and you can begin to view the internet as a powerful way of life but one that has limitations compared to real life. Once your internet life is clean and organized, you can stay away from the internet and enjoy your regular life.

Calendars

Never ever buy a wall calendar. You know you will never use it.

Quicksilver

Use quicksilver on your mac.

The advantages to this are many. You can call up these searches with a quick key combination: google search, google feeling lucky, your iTunes library, wikipedia, amazon, youtube. You can move forward and back your iTunes, you can launch programs, and setup quick key combinations to launch programs. There are many other things to do, but these are essential

Jott

Use www.jott.com to send yourself and others text messages and emails just by speaking into your phone.

Also send your Google calendar an event with no hands. Make to-do lists. And have it read your RSS feeds to you.