.KEYWORD organized
.FLYINGHEAD THE ORGANIZED HANDHELD
.TITLE A simple solution to staying organized
.OTHER
.SUMMARY In order to be a truly effective employee of any enterprise, you need to master the skills of self-organization However, a poor organization system can make your attempts to simplify your life more complicated than it’s worth. Contributing Editor Michael Connick has hit upon a wonderfully simple solution for staying organized, and he’ll share it with you in this extremely helpful article.
.AUTHOR Michael Connick
In order to be a truly effective employee of any enterprise, you need to master the skills of self-organization. In fact, the primary use of my Palm handheld is bringing organization into my life. Without its help, my very busy life could easily turn into chaos. The methods and software I use for organizing my work and personal life are now quite simple. I’d like to share them with you, and hopefully you’ll end up with some ideas to help you become more organized and therefore more effective.
.H1 What do you mean by being organized?
Prior to owning my first PDA (which was an Atari Portfolio), my life was chaos! I often forgot important events, was late for meetings, and couldn’t lay my hands on material important to my job. Getting my first simple PDA immediately helped bring some order into this chaos. Over time I added more and more tools and acquired more sophisticated PDAs that allow me to become even more organized. On my current Palm handheld, I ended up with a large collection of programs that allowed me to schedule appointments, determine which task I should perform next, and maintain copies of important job-related reference materials and email messages. I had reached a point where I knew what I had to do next, and I could readily access all the material I needed to accomplish each task.
.H1 What software did I use?
To help me stay organized, my Palm OS handheld contained the following software:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Datebk4
.BULLET Life Balance
.BULLET ReDo
.BULLET DayNotez
.END_LIST
I used Datebk4 (at http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/datebk4.htm) to manage my appointments, Life Balance (at http://www.llamagraphics.com) to manage my tasks, ReDo to schedule recurring tasks, and DayNotez (at http://www.natara.com) as a journal for reference material and copies of email messages I wanted to keep for future reference. DayNotez was also running on my laptop and my home PC.
.H1 So what was wrong with that?
Although the above setup allowed me to be very organized, (i.e., knowing where I had to be, what I needed to do, and easily put my hands on the material I needed), it was a very complicated setup. It was often something of a pain to get material into DayNotez. Life Balance was extremely directive in choosing what I should next be working on and seemed to require lots of regular fiddling to keep it functioning properly. Datebk4 was fine for managing time-dependent tasks and appointments, although I really only used a tiny fraction of its power. ReDo reminded me when to take out the trash and such, but its workability with Life Balance was also very finicky.
In short, I had an overly complicated system for solving a simple problem! I had to reorganize my organization system.
.H1 So what finally happened?
What finally caused me to reevaluate my Palm handheld setup was my reading a message posted to the GtD_Palm Yahoo Group (at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GtD_Palm/) by Jacques Turbe. The GtD_Palm Group is devoted to discussing and supporting a time management system described in the book, Getting Things Done, by David Allen. It’s a wonderful source of very practical information on improving personal time management and the general organization of one’s life. I highly recommend that you take a visit to David Allen’s Web site (at http://www.davidco.com) and check out all the resources it offers.
Anyway, Jacque described how he too had found himself with a very complex set of software on his Palm handheld for managing his own productivity. He ended up getting rid of all the software except for three key pieces of software: Datebk4, the built-in Memo application, and a little $5.00 piece of software called Memo Leaf. Using these three pieces of software, he was able to implement a sophisticated system for managing tasks, appointments, and reference material.
I was stunned by the simplicity of his approach and immediately started experimenting with using something similar to it for my own purposes. I modified some of his ideas and arrived at a set of software and a process that fully supports all my self-organization needs.
.H1 What is Memo Leaf?
Memo Leaf (at http://www.redwood-creative.com/softwar2.htm) is a classic Palm OS application: it’s simple, easy to use, and does a straightforward and specific task extremely well.
Memo Leaf is a companion that works with the built-in Memo database. Memo Leaf provides a better way to organize and locate Memo information stored in your Palm handheld. It provides super-fast searching functions and allows group operations to be easily performed on the found Memos. It also provides an easy way to set up an unlimited number of virtual categories in which to organize Memos.
Two types of search operations are supported: Lookup, which searches just the Memo title line (the first line of the Memo) and Find, which searches the entire Memo. Searches can take place within categories, or across all categories. Once a search completes, all the resulting Memos can be reassigned to a new category, or even deleted in a single operation. The Memo Leaf application is shown in Figure A.
.FIG A Memo Leafsupports two types of search operation.
.H1 Exactly how do you use Memo Leaf?
By using Memo Leaf, my Palm handheld’s Memo database has become a centralized repository for To Do items and copies of important email messages and other reference material. In fact, I no longer utilized the To Do database at all. Having one single place to put all my To Do items and reference material has greatly simplified my life.
I’m continuing to use Datebk4 for all time-based events and appointments. I could likely just use the built-in Date Book application, but I’ve gotten used to some of the niftier features of Datebk4, like color-coding, icons, and linking. All non-time-based tasks are stored in the Memo database.
My Memo database now contains just the following categories:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET 0203
.BULLET 01/17/02
.BULLET Aids
.BULLET Completed
.BULLET Email
.BULLET Selected
.BULLET Unfiled
.END_LIST
The 0203 (stands for week three in the year 2002) category contains To Do items that will need to be accomplished this week (it’s the third week of 2002 as I write this). The 01/17/02 category contains today’s To Do items (that’s today’s date). The Aids category contains some support text files used by me in managing my time (you might also choose to name this category "support"). Completed is the category containing all my completed To Do items. Email contains copies of email messages important enough for me to keep. Selected is a temporary holding area for holding groups of Memos I’ve selected using Memo Leaf’s Lookup or Find operations. Finally, everything else (and that includes hundreds of Memos in my case) just sits in Unfiled. This category contains everything from To Do items scheduled for the future (that is, beyond this week) to copies of Web articles I want to keep.
.H1 What do your To Do Memos look like?
All my To Do Memos are formatted in a fixed manner. This makes them much easier to find using Memo Leaf. An example To Do appears in Figure B.
.FIG B This is how my To Do Memos are formatted.
The first line (which is the Memo title) is the task to be performed. The second line contains three key items: a week code, a context code, and the due date if one is known.
The week code and due date should be self-explanatory. The context code will require a little explanation.
One key aspect of the Getting Things Done method is the idea of organizing To Do items based on the context in which they can be performed. For example, there are some tasks you can only perform at work while others can only be performed at home. Some tasks may require that you have access to a computer. Other tasks require you to have access to a phone. Simply put, the context in which you currently find yourself controls which tasks you are currently able to perform.
Here’s a list of my current context codes:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Call
.BULLET Computer
.BULLET Home
.BULLET Work
.BULLET Errands
.BULLET Waiting For
.END_LIST
I use Memo Leaf to select just those tasks for the context in which I’m currently working. For example, if I find myself sitting in an airport boarding lounge today, probably the only task I’ll be able to perform is to make calls on my cell phone. So I’ll use Memo Leaf to find all those Memos in the 1/17/02 category that have a Call code in them, and then I can take care of all the phone calls I need to make. As each To Do is completed, I’ll change its category to Completed.
The Waiting For context is a special one. This context allows me to keep track of anything I’m waiting for. For example, if I assign a task to someone who works for me, I’ll create a ToDo entry with a context code of Waiting For, and a due date of when I expect to receive the results.
.H1 How do you update your To Do items?
The routine I go through to keep the To Do material up-to-date is as follows. At the end of each day, I rename the current day’s category name to the next day’s date and scan through the current week’s category for tasks that will be due that day, or which I wish to work on that day.
At the end of each week I rename the current week category. In addition, I go through a full weekly planning process. This consists of reviewing my accomplishments of the past week, checking on items scheduled for the upcoming week, making sure that I have tasks scheduled that reflect my goals and values, check all the Waiting For To Do items to make sure nothing has been forgotten, and finally review project lists (also kept as Memos) and make sure that the next action associated with each of my active projects has been scheduled with a To Do item.
.H1 Conclusion
Staying organized doesn’t have to be complicated, and you don’t have to spend lots of money on software or spend lots of time learning how to use it. I’ve described a simple system for using a Palm handheld that really relies on just one piece of purchased software, Memo Leaf, which costs only $5.00. It has replaced more complex software, but it has resulted in a system that’s very easy to use and sophisticated in capability.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Memo Leaf, visit http://www.redwood-creative.com/softwar2.htm.
For more information on Datebk4, visit http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/datebk4.htm.
For more information on Life Balance, visit http://www.llamagraphics.com.
For more information on DayNotez, visit http://www.natara.com.
For more information on the GtD_Palm Yahoo Group, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GtD_Palm/.
For more information on David Allen, visit http://www.davidco.com.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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