Keeping yourself organized/note taking...

[Melchiades]

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Backpack is cool, Ta-Da Lists is made by the same people except it's ONLY to-do lists. It's simplicity is alluring.

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Wow. Thanks. I love this.

[UncleSalty]

El D:

I'm curious as to what part of the GTD system is too cumbersome for you? Is it the need to constantly subdivide your tasks and project items into different context categories, or the need to spend a dedicated amount of time each week evaluating the current system, or what?

One of the chief benefits to GTD for me is that it allows you to spend a fairly small amount of focused time thinking deeply about projects and tasks and then lets you get back to efficiently "cranking widgets" as they say, without having to be constantly thinking to yourself "is this really what I should be spending my time on or am I missing something?"

How do you manage a huge overwhelming list that might have a wide range of items on it ranging from major multi-step projects to tiny things like getting aluminum foil at the store? It would drive me nuts to have to constantly read through 100's of items on one list throughout my day.

[illusionS]

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Backpack is cool, Ta-Da Lists is made by the same people except it's ONLY to-do lists. It's simplicity is alluring.

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Wow. Thanks. I love this.

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Holy [censored] that thing is life changing. Brilliant.

[tagtastic]

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Backpack is cool, Ta-Da Lists is made by the same people except it's ONLY to-do lists. It's simplicity is alluring.

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Wow. Thanks. I love this.

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Holy [censored] that thing is life changing. Brilliant.

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I just made an account, filled it up with some stuff. Looks great, but I've started things like this before with very little follow-up (like google calendar, great idea, but I just never use it).

[Colt McCoy]

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I use outlook's task function like crazy at work.

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There is a great add-on that will set your Outlook to the Getting Things Done system. I'm not sure why Diablo didn't like GTD, but once I used it awhile I became way more efficient.

[UncleSalty]

Colt -

Do you like the functionality of using contacts for your project list? From what I understand the only real benefit there is that you can explicitly tie you tasks (NA's) to the project itself. I don't use the add on, I just use categories to separate my tasks into context and project lists and it works pretty well for me.

[bkholdem]

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I have two methods of note taking. One is to scribble things inside of a notebook and the other is to scribble things on little pieces of cut up paper at my desk. Both ways, I end up writing the same notes over and over again. I must have wrote: Start stretching in preparation to learn a martial art about a million times.

After I fill up a notebook with my ideas, obvservations, notes, directions, phone numbers, etc... I end up going through it, crossing out the garbage, and then rewriting all of it again in another notebook. It is a huge waste of time.

Any gadgets or systems that you recommend?

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Here is my recommendation:

Start a new notebook and instead of writing a 'to do' list, write a 'done' list. You already know what you want to do so do it and then write it down and then reward yourself, something as simple as some positive self talk to recognize the accomplishment will do. Right now your playing a game with yourself, writing down what you 'should do', not doing it, then repeating.

[Colt McCoy]

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Do you like the functionality of using contacts for your project list? From what I understand the only real benefit there is that you can explicitly tie you tasks (NA's) to the project itself.

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I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I don't actually use the add-on either. All it really does is save you time in setting up your Outlook. I just set it up myself to work like the add-on. They used to have a free pdf that shows you how to use it. I think they charge for it now.

[UncleSalty]

Ok, gotcha. I bought that PDF a few years ago too and that's how I do it. My understanding is that the add-on uses a different method, where your project list is stored in the Contacts section instead of in the Tasks section. The next actions can then be entered as a task and associated with a "contact" so you have an explicit link between your NA's and your projects.

[fnord_too]

I have just started using Easy To-Do, which is free. I stuck it on a jump drive so I can take it from computer to computer (which I also do with keepass).

Paper notes I typically take in a either a day timer or a notebook for that item (though the only special notebooks I have right now are for poker records, which also get put into spreadsheets). Otherwise I just use pads and put them into something better if the notes are important.

I don't put things like "start stretching" in notes (or in my case "exercize more") because that is pointless. There is no chance I will forget I need to exercze more and wrting it on paper does not change my priority. I either will have time or I won't, and if I am going to blow exercizing off, no scrap of paper is going to change my decision. Things like bills go into my to do list, though, because there is a good chance I will miss a monthly bill.