Sat, 06 Aug 2005
No more PDA
As of about a week ago I stopped owning a Palm Pilot for the first time since there have been Palm Pilots. For many folks who read 43 Folders or have read Getting Things Done this will be no surprise; after all, the GTD cult has demonstrated that you can get a lot done without carrying around a micro-computer in your pocket.
I wasn’t convinced even after starting to practice GTD in my own little half-assed way (text files in a folder called ~/gtd, CVS to keep them synced between computers, and vi) and realizing that plain text lists were just better than fancy ToDo list applications. But I still kept my address book and my calendar synced with my Pilot because how else would I know what the number to Zachary’s Pizza was at 10:30pm on a Sat. night when I’m at my friends house? I mean, honestly! That number is important!
I then had two things happen in fairly rapid succession. The first thing was when I realized that my cell phone actually had every phone number in my address book in it AND my calendar (go go gadget iSync). The second was when bsii busted out with a Hipster PDA when we were drinking at Zeitgeist and demonstrated how damn useful a deck of index cards and pen could actually be.
I now have a deck of index cards and a small pen in my pocket and use them to suppliment my collection ‘o textfiles. It’s working great. My cellphone acts as remote calendar and phonebook and additions just go on the index cards for review and addition the next time I’m at a computer. I’m much happier with my system, it’s much cheaper than a Palm Pilot, and I carry it everywhere (unlike the Pilot which I carried most of the time but not always).
Couch to 5k: Week 3, again.
Completed. Onwards and upwards.