keeping track

after having read several GTD (getting things done) books and articles and kind of tried to follow the hype (unnatural for me) and really wanted to become more organized and all, i fell back to the good old analog way.
there are many tools for GTD and there are even more hacks for making the most out of your day but honestly i just wanted to keep track of the things that go on and try to not forget too many things. in the end i am a programmer and no one man show manager that rushes from meeting to laptop to plain to meeting to taxi ... well, just a programmer, consultant, whatever you want to call it.
my main problem was that i recently had to work on many different client machines as ugly as windows behind corporate firewalls or inside government agencies. internet application was a no go therefor. no unrestricted internet access. installing software was a no go as well, which GTD software runs on mac, bsd, linux and windows? some java thing probably ... well, not the way to go as well.
having read an article about GTD with a moleskine. i love moleskines but they are really expensive down here and in the end the form factor is not optimal for my needs. i came up with this generic ring book, about A5 in size.

the yellow post-it like things are numbered and on the first some pages is an index, describing the numbers in one or two words.

the pages itself have a basic grid with one line on top for a headline indicating the project or idea or main thing the page deals with, and a side bar that is used for sub statements like progress or status of the idea/project. the huge advantage of this very basic KT (keeping track (tm)) is that you can draw any little diagram and describe it just the way you need it, not the way a programmer thought of. i thought of writing something like a basic KT application but in the end i am really happy with this ring book ... no issues with power, no problems with things that do not fit the interface, always on, true WYSIWYG ... oh man tons of buzz words.

since i have this nice little book i happen to forget less and finally found a format that can take all my crazy ideas without having the problem to fiddle them in a predefined interface. lets face it, from time to time we programmer have to admit that the right way to go is the analogue way.

Technorati Tags: programming