How I noticed the problem:With the intro of my Palm TX, my Hipster PDA has been reduced to a mere ubiquitous capture tool. That is all well and good.
However, lately I have been procrastinating a lot.
Reading the
first habit (collect) in the Zen To Done ebook. The mission is simple:
- Collect all your "stuff" (GTD term) into a ubiquitous capture tool
- Empty the stuffs you have collected into a To Do List within the day
- Make sure to do this for 30 days to make it a habit
Simple enough. Although, this has already alerted me to one of my GTD problems.
I do not empty my inbox daily. Still, it sounds relatively easy to do.
BANG! Why do I feel like procrastinating while simply processing my hPDA-based inbox?
Because I included too much information on the item.
The Solution:At school (which is the source of most of the complex 'stuff'), I should always carry my Circa Notebook. I should stick to its system:
- Tabbed per subject (NCM, Asian Civ, Thesis, GTD)
- Papers with contents at the back part
- Blank Paper up front for easy access.
This is now my capture tool for school stuff. I will add a Legends Page as suggested in
Journaling To Done to remind me what all my symbols mean. The nice thing about this:
- I write only once (no need to transfer details on my hPDA to notebook)
- I have a history of the things we were instructed to get done.
What will happen to my hPDA?Well, it will reduced to a tickler (pocket notebook) and will still be used to capture ideas, just no complicated stuff like school requirements.
