/tacanderson

Ever since I was in Jr. High, I've had some sort of notebook/planner. Most of my life it was some sort of Franklin Covey, Day Runner kind of system that I used but in 2006 I was inspired to build my own system, losely based on the GTD methodology and Moleskine Hacking. I've written about my system a lot of times in various places and now felt it was time to aggregate those many posts here. 

The Current Hacked GTD System:

The first part of my system begins with my weekly tasks page. This is the big rocks I have to get done this week. The two pages are each divided in half, creating four section: Work, Work Misc., Personal and Misc.

Work is client work, Work Misc. is usually internal projects or other work related activities. Personal and Misc. are pretty self explanatory. They're not in any chronological order, I just copy over any tasks from the previous week that carry over and as the week progresses I write any tasks that develop back over into the appropriate section. This provides me with a week at a glance view of everything I have going on and everything I need to do for the week.

The second part of my new GTD Hack is the biggest change I've made and, for me, the most important part of the system. I call these 2 pages my "Day Map." On the left page I've divided the page into two parts. The top of the page consists of two headings:

The 3 Things I Have to do

The 3 Things I Have to Work On

Both pretty self explanatory but I've found these little tasks to be really important for me. One of the key tenants of GTD is that you don't create a bunch of to-do lists that never get done. But for me the 3 things is a good balance of "If nothing else I have to do these 3 things" and "My to-do list is way to long, I'll never get anything done."

The bottom of this page is also really, really important it's my "Return and Report" section. At the end of each day I sit down with myself and ask how the day went. What went well, what could have gone better and what got in my way, and most importantly, how am I going to do better tomorrow.

The right hand page is my day at a glance. I have four boxes for the things I want to do every morning (but don't always get to), Exercise, Read, Blog & Write. I check these boxes off, when I do them and write notes next to them as to what I actually did. Then I have time slots to for each hour of my day. This is less about day planning and more about time capture. What did I spend my day doing. I'll often make notes throughout the day. I end the page with another box for end of day planning.

I then use different colored flags to denote tasks, reference items, and good ideas - things I'll want to come back to later. The rest of my notebook is filled with notes I take all day long. Each meeting I'm in I write something down about it. Who was there, action items assigned to me or my team, key take-a-ways, random thoughts, etc. I also make sure to take a few minutes each day to write down the various thoughts floating around my head.

My Promise To You

I can't overestimate this enough; We live in a state of constant over stimulation. Your brain is always coming up with ideas. If you don't have an outlet for those ideas while they're still in early development, your brain will struggle to save the goods ones and get rid of the bad ones, freeing it up to work on more good ones.

My Original Hacked GTD System:

Actually there's just something about a blank page that inspires creativity and thought. For as digital as my life gets I still love paper and pen. This post has nothing to do with social media or the Internet except for the complete lack of either. Anyone who knows me knows that I am very rarely without my notebook. I have had a planner of one kind or another since Junior High but they never seemed right. You have to fit all your thinking into their structure. Then a few years ago I started reading all these GTD hacks on blogs. So I started my own Moleskine system that I put together based on some of what I read. Here's a list on Amazon of the supplies I use: GTD Moleskine Hack Supplies

It's important to note that each of the notebooks you see above are different in their set up, they have evolved over time. While every notebook changes a little I have developed some pretty standard component. Each month I start off with a page that I keep as a monthly table of contents. I fill this in as the month goes. This helps me find things quickly but it also helps me mentally organize my activities as I go.

I then keep a weekly page that I break into 4 parts: Work, Projects, Personal and Misc (these 4 things change the most). These are kind of my big to-do items. The dated tabs you (can kind of) see below are the monthly tabs and the plain white ones are the weekly tabs.

This is where I really give the illusion of organization. I break out sections like work, blog ideas, meeting notes, big ideas, etc. The topics change from notebook to notebook, depending on what I need. The red tabs are pages that I have a tasks assigned to. The yellow tabs are pages that I need to reference later.

My current favorite notebooks are the soft cover Moleskine's. A notebook lasts me about 3 months on average.

I don't know if this is an analog leftover of my generation. (I actually took typing class on a real type writer). Moleskine's have become very popular during this whole digital revolution. I know a lot of Gen Y that still use notebooks. Maybe there's just a part of our brains that need analog. For me the biggest benefit for having a notebook is the ability to get away for my computer and collect my thoughts.

Moleskine Alternatives for GTD Hacking:

ecosystem: Eco-Made in the USA

If you're in the States you can pick up an ecosystem notebook. Ecosystem is a very cool, eco-friendly (hence the name) notebook that's made in the USA. It comes in a lot more colors (which I still chose black) and has some neat features that Moleskine doesn't have. Each notebook comes with a unique identifier code that allows you to register it in case you lose it and that code also allows you to see where and when it was made. It comes with more pages than a Moleskine, each page is perforated so you can tear it out but unlike a lot of tear out pages they hold up well to daily use and I never ran into the problem of them falling out.

Ecosystem has a very active social media profile, you can see them on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr (where you can see pictures of their manufacturing facilities), their Tumblr blog or the Sterling Publishing YouTube account. I even spoke with the marketing manager last year about their social media efforts. It's a small team but they're doing a great job with content across all their channels. (I had to throw something social media related in this post).

The only drawback to the ecosystem notebooks is that they are made by Sterling publishing which is a subsidiary of Barnes and Nobel so you can only pick them up at Barnes and Noble stores or through barnesandnoble.com. Which means I can't get them here in the UK. So to all my American and Canadian friends who want to know what presents to get me you can send me a black (onyx), softcover, medium, architect (grid) or artist (blank) ecosystem notebook. Feel free to mail it to our London office. Thanks in advance.

Concepteum: German Engineering in a Notebook

While my family and I were in the Munich airport I stumbled across these little notebooks that came in black, white and red, soft and hardcover and in grid plain and lined pages. Pretty standard stuff, or so I thought.

I grabbed a white plain and a red grid (I felt like straying from my usual black but the next one's will probably be black). These things are beautiful in the way engineering can be beautiful. Like all Moleskine-like notebooks they have some pretty standard features like the back pocket, elastic strap and a ribbon bookmark, but the Conceptum notebooks took it a step further with *two* ribbons and a front "quick" pocket, A PEN LOOP, a personal directory (this could be used to write down important frequently accessed info or used as an index for the notebook) AND, the pages are already numbered for you. This is something I always had to do myself by numbering every odd page, for when I needed to reference notes on a certain page or create my own index. Anyway, I'm a geek and this saves me some time and it looks better than when I do it. Big points there.

These are such little improvements but they make a world of difference, that when you see them you have to wonder why no one ever did this before. I love German engineering.

But this wasn't the end of my surprise. The simplest little thing that I geeked out over way more than any grown man should ever geek out over paper products was an extra piece of paper in the blank notebook. I couldn't figure out what it was for. It had lines on one side and grids on the other and it was just a lose piece of paper in the back. I first thought maybe they put it in there so you could see what their grid and lined notebooks were like but the paper wasn't quite the same and then it dawned on me. It was one of those moments of enlightenment where I again thought, why hadn't anyone done this before or why I hadn't thought of it myself.

The piece of paper was so that you could place it *behind* the blank page you were writing on to use it like a guide, so your lines of notes you were writing didn't inevitably start to curve down the page like they always do when writing without lines. Or if you were sketching you could have a grid behind your page to help keep things in proportion. It was genius and elegant.

One of the things that was so clear about these notebooks was that they were created by people who loved notebooks and used them themselves. These were made and designed by people as geeky about notebooks as I am.

I was not familiar with Sigel, the company that makes the notebooks and while it took me a little while to figure out what the company actually does I've learned some things about this very German company. They are a medium sized German company that makes mostly paper products like labels and printing paper but they're not just some German version of Avery, they really think of themselves as a design firm.

They make leather goods like wallets and notebook covers and planner covers, they make metal card holders and even really cool "white boards" that aren't white at all, fancy desk blotters and mouse pads and pen holder sets, and label printing and business card software and many other things. Sigel is like the Apple of office supplies.

But for me the best part are their notebooks. I love these Conceptum notebooks and while they are available throughout Europe they are a little hard to find in London. I found one on Amazon.co.uk but it was twice the price I paid in an airport bookshop, which while not any more expensive than a Moleskine, I still figured you could find it cheaper somewhere else. So I've either got to find a local or online supplier or convince our Munich office to smuggle some over for me or I'll just have to start making up excuses to go to Germany more frequently.

So, if you're in North America and are looking for an alternative to Moleskine then I'd highly suggest ecosystems. If you're in a part of Europe where you can get your hands on Sigel products then I highly recommend the Conceptum notebook.

GTD Moleskine Hack Alternative: Semikolon

As my GTD Hack system has evolved, I often find myself branching out beyond my trusty Moleskine's and trying other notebooks. I'm usually disappointed and end up going back to the Moleskine. I've found two worthy alternatives before and now I'm adding a third to that list. 

Semikolon is a notebook I discovered while I was in Paris. (They gets points just because I get to utter that last sentence.) They have a lot of varieties of notebooks and even more choices of office supply products. My favorite notebook of theirs has to be the cloth bound travel journals. The cloth is a nice touch (even if it does get dirty) but the watermarked paper is amazing. While I feel a little guilty just writing in them, the paper would obviously be excellent for artists of all types. 

It comes with all the usual, back pocket, two ribon bookmarks and A PENCIL! Not that I really use it, but it's kind of cool. 

They're a little hard to find online. The products aren't sold directly by Amazon but by several different suppliers. I found some on Amazon.com but not on Amazon.co.uk.

Here's the one I'm using Semikolon Linen Travel Diary, Bookmark and Pencil, Black