John's GTD app

Something I think is so neat, I created an entire category for it. I'm thinking this will amount to about a post a week, with the emphasis being on the design. Out of desperation for not having a computer in 2002, I came up with this app to help me survive my inability to remember things.

Put simply, John's GTD app is an 80 sheet, 160 page, 4.5 by 3.25 inch (11.4 by 8.2 cm) ruled notebook that I carry in my pocket. I use a permanent ink pen as the input device. It's a simple setup, but as always, the devil is in the details.

A typical line in John's GTD app looks like this:

Get car insurance check mailed D

There's three important parts of the line: Get, the stuff to get, and the letter after it. Every line in the app has these three elements, and no more, and they always go in that order, obviously. To start, you need the action code.

There are four action codes. For everything in life, you can get by using one of these codes. They are Get, Findout, Log, and Update. It gives you the ability to say "Get eggs," or "Findout when the game is on," or "Log spent $11 at Wal-Mart," and "Update entries." I'll explain these better later, but you get the gist.

Get is used to show that you need to get something. Not like information, but actual physical needs. For information, that's Findout. If it's just something I need to remember, I use Log. Update is rather unique, in that it's both a command for the app itself, or anything else that needs to be updated, but not created.

The information in there is self-explanatory, but the end code needs explaining. After every entry, you'll have one of five data states. These are blank (no writing in it yet), D, R, X, or |. That's not an 'i', that's a vertical line. The codes describe the actions to take with the tasks.

If the code is blank, that means there's been no action on the item. D means the task is complete, R means to redo the action, X means to not do the task (it's been cancelled or is no longer needed). The | is a way to extend one long entry that goes over one line in the app, typically a log entry.

For the most part, this app is as simple as it sounds. It's no Hipster PDA, but what is? More from development of John's GTD app to come.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-11-09T23:11:02.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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