On what do you write notes

I am a pretty high-tech guy. I have a Treo 600, plus I am often either in front of my home or office desktop computer or my notebook computer.

But, I still take most "original input" with paper and pen. If I'm "out and about," that often means writing notes to myself on the little pad in my NoteTaker wallet -- it's always with me. If I'm at my desk, at home or at the office, or if I'm in a meeting with clients, I take handwritten notes on 8 1/2 x 11 notepads I buy from Levenger -- the paper is heavy and thick, reducing bleed through and enhancing my writing experience. I also have similar junior sized notepads from Levenger that I keep by my phones at home and at the office for downloading voicemail, taking quick notes for others, etc.

I try not to mix a bunch of different notes on the same page, because I like to tear the notes off and throw them into my in-basket for appropriate processing and, where appropriate, filing. Thus, all the notes from one meeting go together, but when the next meeting or call starts, and go to a new page. I date everything, and where the notes from a meeting, call, etc. move on to more than one page, I number the pages sequentially. (The Levenger pads provide boxes at the top of each page for that purpose, as well as boxes for topic and filing info -- that's especially useful when the notes must be kept for "official" office filing purposes, as it makes it easier for my assistant to know where things go.)

As I said, I am a pretty high tech guy, but still like to take low tech notes. This is a matter of personal preference. I feel my mind engages more when the hand is in motion, at least during meetings and telephone conversations.

It doesn't mean I'm "double-dumping" either. I take notes by hand, then throw them into my inbox. I later process those notes, and identify projects and next actions -- those I type into my Palm Desktop software on my computer, which syncs to my Treo 600, so I always have my action and project lists with me, but I seldom do original input on my Treo.

Again, this is personal preference, and others may do things differently. It's not right or wrong -- do whatever feels most comfortable to you.

Randy Stokes
randystokes@cox.net
 
Note Taking

I thought I would share a very handy tool with those interested. While at the office I use a notepad and post-it notes without problem, the challenge has always been jotting down notes outside of the office.

I discovered that the IPaq handheld, running on PocketPC allows me to write in longhand, on the screen, notes of (almost) unlimited length. So now, when I want to jot something down, I use the stilus as a pen and write on the screen, almost at full speed. I find it amazingly easy, I always have a notepad handy, without having to stuff one more item in my pockets and I always have all my notes together. (Not to mention backed up on the computer, when I synchronize.)

I think it's great!
 
On What do you Write Notes

For notes I have found the legal pad to always be good. 8) A better tool I have used however is 3 1/2 x 5 note cards kept in a leather wallet using my favorite fountain pen. Captured notes go in a sleeve on the rear of the wallet for processing and there is always a clean note available in the front for a new note.
The plus in note cards is the card is easy to hand off to subordinates in cases of delegation. I have even "colorized" the system with the addition of a hot red card for must process/respond/ handle actions.
I will also use the note pad of my Zire 72 if it's available and set an alarm to remind me later to process. :lol:

Cheers
George
Baltimore
 
At work, I have on my desk a pile of pre-loved paper. Its A4 size (we don't use letter in Oz), cut into 4. The stack is held together by a small clip.

Phone messages, etc go onto those, and then straight into in.

I carry a legal pad around with me, as well as my Palm TT3.

The legal pad is in a leather folio, and has a compartment where stuff can go into. The top sheet of the legal pad is general NA's, ideas, etc captured. I right one, then draw a line.

In a meeting about a topic, I keep a separate page for each topic (project) so that those can go into a file later. NA's are marked with a *

If I am not going back to my office straight away, I tear off the project related sheet, and then put into the compartment that serves as small IN tray. When I do get back to my office, everything goes into IN, and then gets processed.

I have to admit that for some simple type NA's, I capture, process and organise straight into the Palm. I can't see the point of double handling if I can make that front end decision.

But if I have any doubt, low mental energy or similar, I capture onto paper, and process later.

HTH, Des
 
Capturing Notes

I use a daily planner with 2 pages per day. I capture phone messages or other items on the Daily Record of Events (FranklinCovey Planner). I also record meeting minutes here as well. I have a stack of 7 hole punched blank paper and when I need more space I simply grab a new sheet and insert it and keep going.

I also keep a small tray of coloured note paper (3 x 3) on my desk. When I have an idea/issue I want to discuss with someone I write it there. I have a file folder in my drawer for each one of my staff and one for my boss. I simply drop the note paper in thier file. I have regular meetings with these people and review the item(s) at our next meeting. If the timing is critical I can put the note in their mailbox or I paper clip it to my to-do list on my Appointment/Task List page. I often simply give them the note paper for follow up or I keep it in the file folder for the next meeting for follow up.

I have a 81/2 by 11 pad of paper in my desk drawer which I grab when I have a big idea or thought or want to work-through an idea but keep my notes for future refernce and this becomes reference material for a project.

I maintain a binder with tabs for my projects - i keep project plans and reference material behind each tab. I use binders with tabs for projects rather than files because I often confuse "project files" with "general reference files". As project grows I may "move reference material to General Reference files (filed alphabetically) or dedicate a binder to the project and create new tabs for project sections.
 
Note Taking - Stephen 2Page Per Day

Stephen-

This is more a curiosity thing, but how do you process your right hand page? It seems like a lot of information could get put there (a la Covey) but I have dumped my 2 per day pages because i found it near impossible to maintain a zero base/cleared deck ... there was always something floating out there on the right hand page.

BK
 
I would handle it during The Weekly Review or the several mini-reviews I do during the week. I wouldn't let too many days go by without reviewing the right hand pages and processing them into my system.
 
When I am on the run and can use my both hands I use my Treo 600. If I am exercising or driving, I tend to use my voice recorder. From voice recorder they go on my rough sheets. I take rough notes while talking on phone, playing my voice notes, random thoughts, etc. on a jumbo block (has about 870 sheets) of 3"x3" sheets. I then pierce them on a temporary sharp holder (my in-box for these small sheets as they tend to fly away on my in tray). And as spring said (very elegantly) in one of the posts above " and let the process work its magic on them.". The capturing and processing as two distinct steps is one of the GTD epiphanies we feel very good about even late into the implementation.

Ashok
 
Before I went to Palm/Outlook, I was a DayTimer user, so here are my thoughts on the right-hand page:

Since you are going to save your archived pages, you will always have access to what you have written without recopying anything provided you have some sort of INDEX system that will point you back to that entry.

One part of that index system is the use of parentheses. For example, an enter on your action list may be "Call Joe (6/15)." Whatver is in ( ) means "refer here for more information." When I look at "Call Joe," it might not mean a thing, but the 6/15 tells me to flip to June 15 and look at the right-hand page. There I am going to find something like the notes I took during a phone call and I wa supposed to get back to him with some particular information.

The other part of the index system is literally an index that updated at the end of each month (as I took one onths pages out and inserted the next month's pages) I had one word processing document that served as my index. I would type the name of the month and year. Then for each day, I would type of couple of key words for each entry that seemed to be of "lasting value." (This process took about 20 minutes a month.) When I wanted to put my hands on a piece of information, I would pull up that document and use the "find" command to enter a key word. Within a few seconds I would have a hit and know the exact date to go back to in the Day-Timer.

As one example of this, an official from the Department of Human Resources appeared at my office to tell me a complain thad been filed against one of my teachers, not by the parent of the student in question, but by some neighbor who was determined to be the merchant of everybody else's business. As the DHR official began to go give me the details, I vaguely remembered a parent conference I had sat in on some months ago. As he talked, I turned to my computer, pulled up my index and typed the last name of the student in question. The find command hit on the child's name. I pulled the storage binder where I keep archived pages and within a few seconds was looking right at the notes I had taken during that parent conference. It was a situation that began as a misunderstanding but had ended with the misunderstanding clearer up and the parent thanking the teacher. Who would had ever thought the few notes I took on the right-hand page would be important later? When I read to the DHR worker my notes, he was satisfied that there was nothing further to investigate and simply closed the case.

For those who use this kind of system, I would HIGHLY recommend "Time Power" by Dr. Charles Hobbs. I have not read anything where David really addresses this area. Dr. Hobbs really fills that void.

Frank
 
I use a Treo 600, a Palm smartphone with a keyboard, which I find much faster than any stylus entry system, but not as fast as paper. I couldn't carry a Palm around at all times before it became integrated with a small enough cell phone, and I naturally had the same problem with paper day planners. Now I can jot things down anywhere.

At work, when I'm at my desk, I use a 4 x 4" plastic sticky, which looks like a Post-It but functions like a mini whiteboard. You jot things down with a dry erase marker, then erase them. It's great not having to waste one of paper after another just to write down a few words or digits, and whiteboards are too cumbersome to lay on the desk. And you can decide whether or not the note is worth transferring to paper.
 
The 5x7 Spiral Notesbooks with Micro-perf pages in GTD Fast

Wondering where to find the 5x7 Spiral Notesbooks with micro-perf pages that David talks about in GTD Fast. Anyone know? That form factor sounds nice and I like the idea of the micro-perf for tearing off the pages.
 
Simple ream of paper, sitting next to my desk. I write a single note on it and then put it in the in-box to be processed. Cheap, and one ream lasts a long time.
 
Re: The 5x7 Spiral Notesbooks with Micro-perf pages in GTD F

Janet Tokerud said:
Wondering where to find the 5x7 Spiral Notesbooks with micro-perf pages that David talks about in GTD Fast. Anyone know? That form factor sounds nice and I like the idea of the micro-perf for tearing off the pages.
Click to expand...

I found them at the local OfficeMax. They were Mead 5-star 5x7 notebooks with the handy micro-perf pages. Great tool!

I can't find them online very easily, but they were in the stores with all the other 8.5x11 notebooks.

Brian
 
On what do you write notes

I use a journal size spiral bound notebook as my Ubiquitous Capture Tool. Is that Allen's term? Or was it coined by a Forumite? I made a pretty cover for it, using a decorative letter "U" from Microsoft Clipart. So it looks official. I have one for "Office", one for "Home." I was fairly good at assigning each notation to a context list, but a comprehensive projects index was a missing link. I guess I'm confessing to not having adopted GTD correctly, but it surely is worth the effort to stick with it.
 
I am currently shopping around for a beltclip case for my Dell Axim because I religiously take any notes down in the notes function of my Pocket PC.
 
Re: Remember the Cross-Pad?

Seiko makes one for Palm/PocketPC and for any paper notepad - called SmartPad and InkLink. I got them at a firesale at CompuUSA for $20 after $80 rebates.
http://www.siibusinessproducts.com/support/discsupp.html
Jay Shah

jrdouce said:
The Cross pen people used to have an electronic notebook. It was about as think as a PalmPilot and about the size of a steno pad. A coworker gave me a demo several years ago. It provided the easy data capture of a standard note pad, but it could all be uploaded to a computer. It was a great idea. It did require that you write on an actual notepad with a special, and expensive pen containing a microchip. The pad would capture the pen strokes via the microchip. OCR in those days was primitive, so you have to write very clearly, which slowed me down considerably. If the pen were lost, it was expensive to replace.

I think it was ahead of it's time. I would love to see another incarnation of an electronic note padreader. This time, you would write with a cheap stylus and no paper would be required.

Think of an 8X10 PalmPad, where you could write full screen without graffiti. It could have the Palm OS installed also, so we don't need to carry both. It could have built in OCR, the technology is much better these days, you would highlight images to convert to jpeg, and convert the rest to character. Advanced functionality could allow people to share documents in a meeting, propose and accept changes - everyone walks away with all the same data. You could also add "personal Notes" not synchronized to the group. No more new guygirl sitting in the conference room copying the white board trying to remember the context of each bullet point. The multimedia potential of the large screen is obvious.

The original Cross Pad cost about as much as my first Palm III, so a PalmPad with the basic functionality I described should be much cheaper than a laptop or tablet computer.

What do other people think about my dream for a "PalmPad"?
Click to expand...
 
WTD (Writing Things Down)

1) I have a yellow folder that stands out labeled meetings
2) On the inside front cover I clip a printout of an outlook week view and on top of that a printout of a daily view with tasks and notes on the right.
3) I have a light blue sheet under which I place the previous days sheets until I capture any associated notes/next actions.
4) On top of the light blue divider sheet I place appointment printouts of each meeting scheduled for the day. I clip to each appt printout any meeting support info that I will want to refer to/pass out.
5) During the course of the day, I write directly on the day view (in the notes section) or on the meeting printout any relevant info.
6) At the end of the day I either capture those notes in my UCT (ubiquitious capture tool) or place them under the blue divider sheet until I can.

A final note: PhatWare has just incorporated auto-scroll in its PhatPad app version 2.2. I now can use it on my PPC as an option to capture pages of meeting notes. It is truly electronic paper for the PPC.

Regards,
R
 
Whew. Just read my post from August and realised how much has changed. I went from a Treo 600 to a 650, then recently switched to a Samsung i500. The i500 is the smallest Palm smartphone on the market, looks like a regular cell phone, and fits easily in my pocket.

I capture notes with a notetaker wallet (a Wenger pad folio), and the i500's voice recorder when I'm driving or otherwise can't write. The main advantage of my current setup is that everything fits in my pockets, and I never have to lug anything around in my hand, and the geek factor is eliminated.
 
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