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hPDA hack
pooks | Apr 24 2006
This may need some finetuning, but since I find myself doing it automatically, I figured I'd mention it. On my NA cards I'm using the notation system that Hyrum Smith developed for the original Franklin Planners (and is still used with the Franklin Covey versions). You can mark the little box to the left of the line to indicate the stage you're at in that action. A "check" means it's done. An "X" means you changed your mind and deleted it. A "dot" means it's in process right now, you've started it. An "initial" means you've delegated it (you use the initial/s of the person you delegated it to). An arrow "-->" means you forwarded it to another day. You'd also put the new date at the end of the line, ex: 6/01. This might be counter to GTD, unless it's a calendar event, but it is useful.) For me, the only ones I'll usually use are the check, the X or the dot. For example, I've already checked off some phone calls I needed to make and some NAs I've already done. I have a dot beside 'sheets' because my sheets are currently in the washing machine. Once they're back on the bed, that gets a check. The dot is A) to make me feel like I'm doing something because it shows something is happening on that Action, and B) to remind me I need to go back and finish it. I just use the dot, check and X out of habit after doing them for so many years. Also, in the planner (which I'm still using for the day's NAs) I can record any extras I need to know, for example, if I did delegate something I might record what they told me about it and their expectations of when it would be finished, etc. That's another version of Waiting For, but I like the record so that I can flip back to 4/22 and say, "But husband dear, on April 22nd you told me not to do that, that YOU were going to take care of it, and it's ... gee, could it really be ... August now?" Not that I'd ever be snide or anything. Ahem. 8 Comments
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 I don't believe this for...Submitted by pooks on April 24, 2006 - 8:35am.
solidsnot wrote:
I don't believe this for a second. ;) Well I never! ::flounce!:: Okay, okay, okay, you win that point. Ahem. But honestly it was the ability to go back and find that kind of information that won me over to using the planner -- after many attempts to do all sorts of organizational systems and tricks. I was in the midst of big insurance hassles and the fact that I stopped writing what they told me on scraps of paper which got lost, and started writing down the name of the person who called me, the time, and what they said on that particular day's blank page that changed my life. Instead of frustrated, I became organized and dangerous. I might not have been organized in any other part of my life, but when six weeks later the insurance customer service rep informed me that I had to be mistaken, that there was no notation that "such and such" was supposed to happen -- And I sat there and flipped back through my planner and told her, "On Jan 4 at 3:37 p.m. I spoke to Jane Doe for twenty minutes and in the course of the conversation she told me A, B and C, and that she would forward this information to his supervisor who is "Jane Smith" because D, X and Z should never have happened in the first place --" Customer Service Creep tries to interrupt. "No, wait, there's more -- on Jan 28 I called back at 10:04 a.m. and spoke to "John Johnson" who said he would do J &K and call me back, but he didn't, and when I tried to call him three days later on Jan 31 he didn't return my call -- "And then on Feb 5 I spoke to YOU, "Jane Smith," and you assured me all of this would be taken care of ...yadda... yadda..." Well, it's like this. When you get right down to it, those notes I had meant nothing. I mean, I could claim anything, right? But when they realized what kinds of notes I was keeping, it's amazing how fast everything suddenly got taken care of. So I'm loathe to give up my planner, even though I now use a very small one. But for the day's NAs and the ability to keep ongoing notes (and reference back to them), I'm still sticking with the planner. And the dot/check/X are easy to get the habit of. Pooks » POSTED IN:
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