Sunday 11 November 2012

the Holy Grail of organisation

I had a lovely vision this morning.

Imagine me sitting down, at home on a Sunday like this. Going through my gtd inbox (=random notes and scribbles) in my filofax, Roxy, and updating my action lists. At some point I add an appointment to my calendar, and I know it should be added to my husbands calendar, too. Now I would like it to be magically, or atleast with minimal effort, sent to him!

I don't want to have to write a separate note and remember to give it to him later, start up the computer to write an email or text or call him. It should be extremely quick and also fit his style of organisation. He uses a moleskine diary, spends several hours a day in front of computers and has his Android with him most of the time. 

I'm not psychic, so I can't make the thoughts and info appear in his mind, so I suppose I have to stay within what is physically and technologically possible. Speech, notes on paper and digital representations will have to do!

What I do today is usually just hand him the original inbox note with some extra info on what's been decided and let him process it any way he likes. It's a good system. The drawback is I have to remember to give it to him (it's actually an action item in itself!) and when he's out of the country on work they tend to pile up here. Some of them need to be acted upon before he comes back.

Technology is getting there, I suppose. Just look at the Evernote Moleskine initiative (the price of the notebook is, well, crazy) and the Whitelines link app and paper. Whitelines allow you to download the paper as pdf for free which allows for (or at least inspires) all sorts of attempts at adaptation and tweaking - yay!




Wouldn't it be nice to be able to capture what's handwritten on a page in your filofax (or any other piece of paper for that matter) and with a click or two on your smartphone have the relevant information sent to whomever it should reach? I would love an app like this! The computer scientist in me will have to give this some serious thought... :-)

Magically (digitally) sharing my handwritten paper-based calendar items and actions with other people in the appropriate format at the right time. 

This is my Holy Grail of organisation, what's yours?


3 comments:

  1. Why mot must use the smart phone to photo your note or page as you make it and send the photo as a picture message ot email attachment at once? Your husband then has it wherever he is and can add it to his moleskine

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  2. That happens, too, especially with stuff that comes in the mail :-)

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  3. I'm very late to this post, but I was going to suggest the same thing as Helen!

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