GTD on Post-Its: MaterialsWhat options do I have to maintain a reliable system if I prefer to stay «unplugged»? This time, I'm going to present a Post-It variant I've tried for a few weeks: how it looked like, what worked, and what did not work that well.
Office supplies I've used
- a loose-leaf
- a few loose leaf filler paper sheets (5-10 for the lists; some more for the Inbox)
- a pack of self-adhesive / sticky notes (size: 4 or 6 of them should fit on a single divider)
GTD on Post-Its: SetupIf you wish to try this, I recommend using a standard loose leaf (A4, A5, whatever format you like and is common in your country). Most of the paper-bound «time planning systems» are designed to make a difference here - with respect to punch holes and formats. I've avoided them, since the respective supplies of filler paper and dividers are neither ubiquitous, nor easy to find, nor cheap.
The setup
Two sheets (left page and right page) received category headings, 4-6 headings per page spaced evenly. Below the headings, I placed the notes. That's all. I chose left and right pages to be able to see all lists at once.
What worked well for me
While I used this, I had an unprecedented overview of all lists at a glance. On a single A5 sheet, you may have up to 6 lists in parallel.
When space was running out on a note, I simply chained another one by sticking it to the full one (of course, I needed to leave a little space at the bottom of the full one, else the last list item would be hidden).
It was hardly ever necessary to copy remaining open items over to a fresh note. Most of the time, I could simply replace a note filled with done stuff by an empty one. This works especially well for "chained" notes!
Whatever list I needed in whatever meeting, I could simply take out the respective note and stick it onto papers, books or whatever I took with me to the meeting. Nice variant, too: you can stick the @Errands list to your shopping cart handle.
What did not work that well for me
Since I used relatively small (A5) dividers, I had to use small notes as well. I tried bigger ones, but then two of them hardly fit side by side on the divider, so I gave up on that. As a result, the list items need to be written in extra small letters. That could have been amended by switching over to A4 dividers, but the loose leaf for that was too big to take it everywhere, in my opinion.
With respect to @WaitingFor and @MaybeSometimes lists, I could not see any advantage in putting them on sticky notes.
What I'll stick with
I'll stick with Post-Its for the @Errands list, but I found better solutions for the rest.
