In a previous post I mentioned using desktop stickey notes for all kinds of temporary sort of issues. I have pretty much stopped this process. The problem I found with the system was… that it was way too easy to create 50 or 60 minimized stickey notes that became out of site and out of mind. I liked the ability to click a button and have a place to copy and paste a phone number or jot down a quick note, but I wasn’t disciplined enough to manage that information so it just hung around until I got sick of looking at it. I was sort of inspired by this 18 minutes to keep your schedule on track article and started messing with paper todo list templates. My default paradigm is “paper sucks” so I replaced the process with the tools below.
Texter:
Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting a lot of millage out of a LifeHacker program called texter ( Texter). Texter gives you hot keys to write repetitive text quickly. The tool is great for programming, but also for things like email signatures or your mailing address if it isn’t part of your existing signature. I have been using texter to pre-format text documents for todo list items. Simply typing .todo gives me a prompt for a new todo list item.
DropBox:
Since Note Pad takes up almost no memory and launches super quickly I have been keeping my ToDo lists inside of a simple text file. To facilitate synchronization I have been using the before mentioned drop box to keep files in sync between my desktop, laptop, and work computers during the day. I’ve come to like drop box because it keeps local copies of files rather than using the net to access everything. This makes launching files much faster.
Samurize:
Finally I missed the ability to have information omnipresent on my desktop, but have been able to set up a sweet program called Samurize to keep my text files open and in my face. Samurize is described in more detail on lifehacker ( Samurize Info) I also made a 2 minute video on how to set up a config file for samurize. The program isn’t super user friendly, but it doesn’t seem to suck up much processing power and it works well. I think the coolest thing I’ve been able to set up with this is the ability to right click and edit the original notepad file. This is shown in my video here: http://screencast.com/t/zCVgjSnS8
The Future:
The only thing I don’t really have is mobile synchronization or alerts. I didn’t have all of this with stickey notes, but it isn’t quite as cool as remember the milk either. I’m thinking about making a web page that emails me my todo list every few hours during the day. This would push it to my mobile phone pretty easily. I would still have to cross things off the list from a computer because drop box doesn’t allow editing from a web page yet, but I can live with that.
I’ve been making a cool custom whiteboard for my home office, but keep thinking. I wish it was more simple to digitize what I write on the board. Using evernote and a digital camera works well, but its not the same as a digital surface. I have been thinking about a children s toy called a magna doodle and wondering if there is any way to digitally manipulate or scan weather each cell is filled or unfilled in an efficient way. If this were possible then it would be really simple to digitize large surfaces that don’t require superfine resolution. I think of white boards, classrooms, architectural plans and things of that nature.
