I’ve been walking around with a Palm Z22 in my pocket for 2 years now. It’s my 7th PDA, and like the others, takes a disproportionate amount of effort to input information. I’ve missed having paper to write on.
Between (being able to afford) PDAs, I’d use a Moleskine Pocket Planner as my wallet. I have an obscene collection of Moleskines, and feel guilty about not using them. There’s definately something romantic about using one, and something pragmatic about having paper and pen in one’s pocket at all times.
Last week, I decided to abandon the Z22 in favor of a Moleskine Pocket Grid Notebook. At first, I had sectioned the pages off in hopes of incorporating a watered-down drift of Getting Things Done. Tonight, while browsing Tony Buzan’s The Mind Map Book, I decided to try out mindmapping as my time- and task-management tool of choice.
Tags: getting things done, mind mapping, moleskine
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June 20, 2008 at 2:10 am
Pingback from Online Mind Mapping « Geeks Guide To GTD
May 15, 2008 at 2:09 pm
L. S. Russell
I have read and reread Buzan’s book and I am an avid mindmapper. I find myself making todo lists, lecture notes, and blog posts as mindmaps.
I use a large sketchbook because I feel too constricted in the Moleskine but I would be interested in hearing more about your progress with it.
May 17, 2008 at 3:21 am
brennen
I was initially concerned about using the pocket Moleskine for mindmapping, but it’s worked out just fine. I write small, and keep my concepts simple. The major benefit is that I can carry a pocket notebook everywhere a large sketchbook would be inconvenient.
For scheduling, it’s taken a few days to really get into the swing of things. I started using a spread per day, but decided I’d try a spread per week with each weekday as a high-level branch. I put all appointments at the end of the appropriate branch. This doesn’t show me my free time, but it allows me to see what I have on my plate at a glance.
May 27, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Jeremy
You should look into a PDA that synchronizes with Exchange Server (like a BlackBerry or Windows SmartPhone). They make life easy because they synchronize all of your appointments, tasks, and contacts wirelessly with Outlook, which means you can manage it on the computer which takes less time. Exchange also has a nice webmail interface for checking email on the go.
I’m currently reading “Time Power” by Charles Hobbs. It’s a good one.
June 2, 2008 at 5:42 pm
brennen
I’ve considered lots of things like that, but I’ve come to realize that while my life is busy, it isn’t complicated. When I was working as a graphic designer, a PDA was a necessity. Now, it is just a glorified address book that takes up pocket room.
The benefits of paper are that you never have to sync them, you never have to worry about losing data due to a dead battery, and I have a pretty good drawing and word-processing application built in…my skills as an artist and writer.
July 8, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Ekenberg
How is it going with your system ?
Moleskin + mindmap ?