Getting From Notebooks to My System
Posted on April 4, 2008 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Productivity
I have a confession to make. I love notebooks. I love the feel of writing on paper with a good pen. I love making lists on paper, too.
Unfortunately, I have a problem getting those lists back into my productivity system.
I found a notebook in my briefcase this week containing a bunch of items I needed to get to…last week. So I decided to think about how to sync my notebook with my electronics.
The system I’m going to explain here I’ve used for a few weeks, and I’ve had good results with it so far.
The Materials
- A notebook. I bought a fun little notebook, plastic covered, spiral bound.
- Flags. I have a packet of Post-it Flags
(aff) tucked into the back pocket of the notebook.
The Method
Every night I mark a new page with the vertical flag from yesterday. This is my starting point.
During the day, everything gets written in here. If it is a to-do, it has a little box drawn against it.
At the end of the day, I put everything into its proper electronic place. If for some reason I can’t translate it into electronic format, I put a horizontal flag on it.
At the end of the week, all horizontals are either scanned into the computer or removed.
It’s a fairly simple system, but it is working so far. What I find is that other than the to-do items, pretty much everything in the book is simply thinking out loud. Most of it does not need to be put into the electronic format.
Photo by Wm Jas
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