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27 May 08

Idea #1: One-sentence journal entry

Last week, I stumbled across this The Happiness Projects article about keeping a one sentence journal. What a brilliant idea! It suggests that we keep a daily one sentence journal entry. Which is perfect for those of us who are feeling the time crunch but want to keep up with the practice of journaling. All you gotta do is at the end of your day, write a one sentence statement summarizing your day. Did something memorable happen that day that you want to capture down in your notebook? Think of a particularly "deep thought" you want to keep? Just write it down. Keeping track of events in the day helps improve your memory and gives you a record of your life that you can pass down.

Fiddlers, listen up: Switch to paper. I’m talking the absolute lowest-fi system you can tolerate. Get rid of the fancy notebook, the expensive software and the pen made from the carcass of some endangered species. Go buy a couple boxes of crappy manila folders, a box of bic pens, a few reams of plain white printer paper and a pocket dayrunner-style calendar. Use only these tools (aside from your phone and your brain) and set yourself up caveman style. Force yourself to live in the GTD wilderness for awhile (which is paradise to some, by them way) and you’ll start to appreciate the way some of the higher-tech setups work. Or you’ll fall completely in love with it and never go back.

On the ruled Pocket Moleskine, I found I could divide the page vertically into 3 sections of 7 lines each, with room at the top of the page for the month on the top left of the page and week number on the top right of the page.
Next I added the days and dates to each section of the two-page spread, dividing the 6th block on the lower right page in half with a vertical rule for Saturday and Sunday.
2 more annotations...
- I continued with this format for 31 two-page spreads, through December 31, 2006. Pocket Moleskines have 192 pages, so it's possible to do an entire year and have several pages left over for notes (one distinct advantage over a stock Moleskine Weekly planner).
  
  In the remaining back section after December 31st, I separated sections with the sturdy 3M tabs for 5 next-action lists where I can capture tasks to be completed. The toughest decision was the allotment of pages for each action list before starting the next (I chose 6),though I can always move the tabs around if need be.
- Inspired by Bill Westerman's symbols, I created a similar set, with a circle as an open action, checked circle for completed action, slashed circle for deferred (with an added arrow symbol to indicate where it was deferred to) and a dash for items which are informational rather than actionable.