Going back to (mostly) paper

Posted on May 8, 2006 4 Comments

I have been using various Pocket PCs for almost a decade now. I’ve had my latest one (iPAQ 4355) for around 3 years and still use it daily. While I’ve always diligently tried to keep it current with my “to-do’s”, calendar and contacts, I have to confess that this hasn’t always worked out very well for me. Sure, Activesync makes it pretty painless to sync to Outlook, but I finally admitted to two key facts this weekend:

I suck at keeping my to-do stuff current in either Outlook or on the device.
I tend to grab scraps of paper and scribble down tasks and carry them around with the pocket pc.

So, the pocket pc works great for my calendar, my contacts and even reading my email (I LOVE being able to sync wirelessly while off in a different part of the office!). I even use it frequently for reading my bloglines feeds and as my podcast player (I <3 FeederReader). But my to-do list is arguably the most important of all of that.

Why do I struggle with electronic to-dos? Not entirely sure, but I bet it is related to the fact that I can write a lot faster than I can get to the appropriate program and type or transcribe. Sure, my iPAQ has the nifty keyboard built in, but I’m just too slow on it. Transcribing works quite well for me also, but again — too slow. Running back to my laptop to enter it in Outlook is usually what has to happen. If I remember. And hey, if a bright shiny object distracts me on the way? Game over and task lost until the next time it bubbles up.

Dug up my old Franklin pocket sized (a debatable label) “SpaceMaker” binder. It holds refills in the 3.5″ x 6″ size and was originally intended to hold one of my failed Palm experiments. I cut away the stuff on the inside front cover that was built to hold the Palm and added a bit of velcro and now it holds my iPAQ nicely. The binder is nicely padded and contains all my paper in one place AND my pocket PC. There are even spots to hold business cards and such in the back cover.

I’ve loaded it with blank “Notes” refills and split it into two sections. The front section I’m using as a daily to-do list. My habit of even drawing in the little checkbox from 20 years ago in the Daytimer world appears to live on… Meeting notes for that day would go on the same page (or back, or next page) as well. New day? Start a new page. The second section is where I can jot down longer term stuff that I don’t want to lose. Design sketches for example.

I’m only 3 days into it so far, but already feeling a bit better. If nothing else, I hope to not be losing all my paper scraps anymore! The binder, while small,� is bigger than just slipping the iPAQ into my pocket and I’ll have to adjust to that a bit, but aside from that I’m happy. Interestingly, I’ve crawled around the Franklin Covey site a bit and I’m not sure they sell this particular binder anymore. It is probably around 6′ish years old back when they were really into the handhelds.

Tags: lifehack, pocketPC