My buddy Big Al Harrington has written an interesting post on whether PDAs are really useful for time management.
I have actually become a serious user of paper planning material (using templates from DIY planner). I plan every day using paper … for me, it is quicker than using my smartphone and it lets me have a whole day at a glance, and lets me see what I have scratched off as done, and so on. I still keep a task list on my T-Mobile Dash, and keep all appointments on it, but I use paper to really manage my day: some days I have 5 or 10 new tasks on it that I do not add to my Dash’s task list. (I do not use an actual planner package: just individual sheets of paper that I keep in front of me on my coffee table.)
What are your thoughts on this?
I would be interested in knowing what DIY planner templates you are using – I’m a Palm PDA user and have found some useful information from GTD and have cobbled together a system that is getting me closer. The thing that I think I am missing is laying out a plan for the day or week to get all those things done!
I use Palm Desktop and haven’t resorted to scheduling in the Tasks on the calendar – maybe that is a step I need to take – was a bit afraid of getting too much information on the calendar among appointments, etc which would then make the calendar more difficult to read. I wish Palm would allow printing off a better Weekly Calendar view which could then be used as the weekly template – so I’m in a search and I’m interested in finding out what you are doing.
Thanks for the website – some great info
Thank you for the comment. Good to hear how you are putting things together.
Right now I only use one sheet from the DIY Planner: the letter size “Day Keeper” template, undated. It has four sections on it: Appointments (Day), Actions (about 30 lines, college-ruled, I use every other line), and Notes and Evening Appointments at the bottom. I like the letter size the best, personally, although that’s clearly a matter of preference.
I print out about 10 pages at a time, and generally fill them in from Today through two or three days forward. Since all “actual appointments” are in my Dash (and also in the Palm, since I sync both to Outlook), I don’t worry about planning out farther than that, at least right now. I have a list of major things that I’d like to get done during the week, but that’s just on a separate piece of paper. Appointments that I make with myself, such as Post on Topic Such and Such, are put on paper planner for a specific day, and I work to have enough such appointments to try to make good use of my day. (Sometimes I also have appointments like “Read …”)
I find the paper planning process to be great for a “visual person,” like I am. I am thinking through a post on visual planning and will likely post it later this week. Haven’t gotten all the details squared away in my mind yet – I am leaning toward to making it a discussion of using mindmapping for planning.
Thanks again. I look forward to your future comments.