Getting Things Done
For a long time now I've been trying to reliably remember stuff and collect notes and thoughts in a common environment. My mind itself has proven to be not reliable enough for that stuff. If I want to remember something important and get distracted within moments or minutes with something other but also important the first information is lost. It just randomly pops up in my mind, when it's too late or useless at that moment.
I tried several methods and tools like Post-Its, appointment calendar, mobile phone reminders and so on.
Only the mobile phone reminders are still in use but I can't drop pieces of mind into my mobile, typing is just too slow.
The problem with such tools is that after a while I get lazy at looking into them and forget stuff because of that.
I tried also software tools but those I tested have significant drawbacks:
- Microsoft Outlook is too heavy to keep it open all the time. And it's not very secure. Taking and ordering small notes is also not easy.
- CUEcards 2000 is good at taking and sorting notes but I don't feel comfortable with the overall handling.
- Mozilla Calendar/Sunbird is also bad at taking notes and has a large footprint (at least it had the last time I checked)
- and some minor tries with others
Recently I was browsing around at Lifehacker and read an article about a simple tool.
It's called GTDTiddlyWiki and is in fact a highly dynamic and self-contained WebApplication which is somehow a mixture of a Wiki and a Hipster PDA. In fact it's just a "simple" webpage that can edit and change itself and even save itself to disk if used within the right browser. Adding, editing and sorting is all done with Wiki-like actions and everything works just within seconds.
I thought of integrating it into my browser experience, because my browser is something I use almost every day. When I make a personal instance of GTDTiddlyWiki my startpage in the browser, everytime I open a new tab I'll have to look at my stuff.
It has no reminders but this could be the most useful thoughts-box I came across until today.
Perhaps it would be possible to even integrate something like a calendar with reminders into a sidebar, I'll have to contact the creator of this greatest piece of dynamic HTML.