What to do when you loose your NA lists...

[aszy]

Unfortunately I have lost my palm. I think i may have left it at work but even so i'm without my GTD system for the weekend. I've become so accustomed to using it that now i feel like a lost little kitty... I realize now how dependent i have been on GTD to keep everything in my life together. It has been bugging me so much this morning that i opened up palm desktop and transferred the next actions for all of my contexts onto 3x5 cards. It's nice that GTD is flexible enough that one can quickly transition from using one medium to another.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I'm hoping that my impromptu 3x5 card system will suffice until i manage to find my poor little palm.

 

[cornell]

Sorry to hear about it! First, when's the last time you sync'd with your desktop? If you're doing it regularly (and now's not the time to point out that you REALLY NEED to be backing up regularly!) you've only lost the last few days or so. However, if you're not backing up, the best you can do is a brain dump to get back up to speed. You may have to review emails and your action support folders to remind yourself what was up. Also, it may help to email people to say what's happened, and to ask if they're expecting anything from you...

 

[aszy]

Ya, luckily i synced a couple of days ago so i didn't loose too much. I actually kind of like using 3x5 cards. It's a little faster to add new next actions. Who knows maybe i'll keep using them even when i manage to find my palm again. Tomorrow i'm going to hold my weekly review and really take some time to get my system back in control.

 

[Trish]

let me know how you like the cards (paper) vs. The Palm

Okay? I am curious as I keep going back and forth somewhat, but at least you are a clean slate and a virgin at doing that.

Trish

 

[aszy]

I like it so far. Of course I've only been doing it for about 8 hours now. I don't have to worry about my batteries running out on me at least. Thats a plus. It's a little different since with paper you end up leaving your projects list, and someday/maybe list on a notebook at home, which i suppose isn't that big of a deal. It is a little different though.

I'll keep you posted on how my paper system works. I think regardless of whether or not i find my palm anytime soon I'll experiment with the paper only thing for about a week.

Since i do programming I spend most of my time in front of a computer as it is. It might be refreshing to just use paper for once.

 

[madalu]

Yeah for index cards!

The good thing about physical writing is that it actually helps you remember the stuff you have to do. So if you lose your cards, the act of writing will make it easier to remember the stuff you've lost.

 

[Brent]

After several years of using and loving Palm OS devices--and having them break--I switched to index cards. I have no plan to go back.

I posted something about this on my blog, actually; the many reasons I use index cards.

• Paper has extremely high resolution: about six hundred dots per inch, compared to about one hundred for a "high-res" monitor. It supports text and graphics, and direct input. It's also full-color. Input devices are ubiquitous, standardized, and cheap.
• My data is stored in a universal format that will still be recognized fifty years from now (compared to, say, a Microsoft Word 97 file).
• It never crashes. The data is rarely corrupted (smudged), and even then has always been limited to a few words and been recoverable by context.
• It never has to be reset. It doesn't have to boot; it's always immediately on.
• It uses zero power. Its batteries never die. It never has to be recharged.
• It's almost perfectly secure. While it's in my pocket, nobody else in the world can possibly access it. If I want to securely delete the data, I burn a card and the data can't possibly be recovered by a third party.
• It can be easily backed up (using a photocopier). It can be easily archived (drop it in a file folder). It fits a wide variety of standard media.
• The display can be expanded to huge size by spreading out cards on any surface. Cards can be posted publicly on almost any surface, anywhere in the world.
• I can buy massively more storage (five hundred cards) for about three dollars.
• If I want digital storage, the data can be scanned into a computer in about ten seconds using a $70 off-the-shelf scanner.

 

[notmuch]

I vote for Palm!

Before this thread gets hijacked by all you 3x5 index card zealots...

I recently had to send my Palm in for repair, and decided to give index cards a try while waiting for the repair turnaround. While the advantages of paper were immediately apparent, I really missed everything I could do with my Palm. Fare thee well, index cards. No point in detailing the advantages of a digital system here... that horse is thoroughly dead. But you can always ask yourself what does the Great One, D.A., use?

I'm curious, is there anyone out there who uses a purely digital or purely paper system? I seriously doubt it. It's really just a question of where you sit on the digital/paper spectrum.

To each his own.

 

[catsfather]

Yes, but no, but yes, but...

I left my iPROD (stack of 3x5 cards) at work a couple of days ago. I knew they were there, I know I had photocopies of them that were just a few days old, but I went into a panic. Mind like water? I thought I'd been dropped into the middle of the Atlantic.

The solution is a *trusted* backup?

 

[Cpu_Modern]

While the advantages of paper were immediately apparent, I really missed everything I could do with my Palm. Fare thee well, index cards. No point in detailing the advantages of a digital system here... that horse is thoroughly dead.

Yes, but let's consider a few superiorities of a Palm over paper:

1. Recurring events/tasks are easy, no copy work needed ie from one year's calendar to the next ect.

2. Alarms.

3. Syncronization no double-entry of data.

4. Californian Army Knife of Productivity. You get some nifty tools with it you wouldn't otherwise bother with bringing with you. A library, a camera, audio recording device, excel sheets, medidtaion time, video games and on it goes. Maybe you don't care about all of them, but one or the other might be usefull for you.

5. The tiny screen gives you so much more focus. Just kidding