Naive Moleskin Question

[DaveR]

Hello.

After 5 years of wonderful servive my palm PDA died on me. I quickly converted everything to a paper-based system - which in itself was a great purging exercise for my GTD system.

While I contemplate my future set-up (palm smartphone, Blackberry, iphone, etc. - we don't use outlook at work so my desktop support is limited; I used to use the palm desktop program at work), I will continue to use a paper system. I am using a cheap binder and obviously paper.

For those of you who use moleskins, how do you set it up? What I'm getting at is when I do my weekly review I end up re-writing most of my lists. It's easy to do that with a binder - you just pull and replace the sheet(s) you are using.

How the heck can you do that with a moleskin?

Am I missing something right in front of me?

-- Dave

 

[clango]

For those of you who use moleskins, how do you set it up?

I used the weekly thin one. Using the week to calendarize, the right side to take note of the tasks calensarized in that week. Than I produced some index cards - same size of the moleskine - to collect and keep always with me the contexts

I hope it could help. Why don't you keep us informed about the new pre by palm?

 

[MarinaMartin]

Why not continue to use a paper system? You're correct in that a Moleskine doesn't let you add and remove pages at-will; the best you can do is tape/staple/paperclip them in.

I use thin Moleskines for specific projects where I'm tracking details over a period of time (i.e. an exercise log at the gym), but it would never work for my actual system. If nothing else, I have so many projects and tasks that finding what I need mushed in the small pages is not practical.

 

[DaveR]

Thanks for your input.

I may continue to use the paper system. As we all know there are benefits of both. I don't need or want a smartphone - but I did love my PDA! I might buy a used one, but it is a real shame that palm doesn't make them anymore.

-- Dave

 

[kewms]

I used a Moleskine for a while. My system ran aground on exactly this problem: no way to add or remove pages.

The alternative that worked for a while was to copy remaining tasks forward when most of a page was complete. But even then the partial pages and the jumps over finished pages got annoying after a while.

Katherine

 

[RuthMcT]

Thanks for your input.

I may continue to use the paper system. As we all know there are benefits of both. I don't need or want a smartphone - but I did love my PDA! I might buy a used one, but it is a real shame that palm doesn't make them anymore.

-- Dave

I had a look on amazon.com They are still selling new Palm Tx's as well as refurbished ones.

If you want something where you can put pages in and out, have you considered a Filofax? http://www.filofax.com/ A bit expensive, but very good quality. I've just treated myself to one and am about to set it up for GTD. I used to use a Palm synchronised to Outlook but find it easier to have sheet of paper with the current context list in front of me when I'm working.

Ruth

 

[Oogiem]

I haven't tried them but a lot of folks like the circa stuff from Levenger for a paper implementation that allows you to easily add and subtract pages.

Downside for me would be the sopecial paper punch. I'd want something more portable and easy to add to but they do look neat.

You can get a sampler of circa stuff from Levenger for free (it's some cost but you get a coupon for the cost to use later)

Not a user of circa but I love Levenger storyboard paper for laying out scrapbooks.

 

[marcia]

GTD journal

The way a Moleskine fits into my GTD system is as a journal. I use a ruled Moleskine and I pencil in a vertical line about an inch from the outside edge of the page to make a column for topics. On Fridays, when I do my Weekly Review, I archive things in it: with the date, the description, and (within the column) the topic, for example "House" or "Health" or "Pets". The topics make it easier to scan the pages later if I need to find some information.