Back in the day, the Hipster PDA was introduced. I liked the idea, but found it too high tech. I didn’t need all the features of bunching all my thoughts together at the time, I really wanted a way to easily track tasks, know when to do them, easily reorder them, and have a sense of accomplishment when they’re done. Well, I’m here to introduce my way of doing it, with…index cards.
I use a trickler file to keep me on track of what I need to do each day. I can easily move things to the future and at the beginning of the day I can see what’s ahead. After reading Getting Things Done, it hit me. I wanted to take the ease of usability of the Hipster PDA and integrate it with my trickler file. Here are my short steps to getting your tasks in order.
- Write down each task on an individual index card. It’s a great place to write any notes to jog your memory too.
- If it is to be done today, put it in your inbox, else file it in the trickler.
- Anytime you need to, pull your index cards for your day and see what can be grouped together and done all at once. Easy to reorganize on the fly as needed.
- Do the task and recycle the card (or as I do, reuse the card until you can’t use it again and then recycle it). If you want or need to keep a record of what you did, just file each index card in an index card box by date.
- Enjoy the ease of fast reorganization of tasks with the joys of accomplishment.
Really, that’s it. I just love this new approach. One thing I do is keep my index cards for the day in a business card holder (fits real nice) which allows me to see the current task as well as quickly reorder tasks as needed.
More fun organization tips to come.
