Good post on implementing elements of _Getting Things Done_ with Martin Ternouth's paper project management system (mentioned earlier here).

As long as we’re on a run with Quicksilver tips, here are a few of the ways that I use Quicksilver that include pieces of the program that many folks aren’t familiar with yet.

Note that these are intermediate to advanced tips, so, again as ever, please look over the documentation (such as it is) and my setup guide—make sure you're using the latest version, read up on Quicksilver, load up on plugins (available via “Preferences > Plugins” in the Tiger version), and make sure you’re running in beta mode before asking for help.

I’m still encountering folks who are big-time Quicksilver fans who don’t know about “The Comma Trick,” so check it out: when you’re using the first (and often the third) pane in Quicksilver, you can hit “,” (comma, with no modifier key) at any time to add the currently selected item to a working stack. Go ahead and try it. (important: The Comma Trick only works if you’ve chosen "Advanced Features: Beta" in “Preferences: Application??? and the “Primer” or “Bezel” command interface in “Preferences > Appearance”—switch if you need to and restart QS)

1. Invoke Quicksilver (CTRL-Space by default)
2. Use QS to navigate to your ~/Documents folder (or wherever a bunch of small documents live)
3. Select a text file or a Word doc or what have you (don’t grab anything too huge for now)
4. Type “,” (that’s a comma)
   • The icon in the pane should “scooch up” a little and the icon for the selected item now appears in miniature format below its name
5. Select another file (again, any small file will do), and, again, type “,”
   • The icon for the item you added should now also appear next to the icon for the first item
6. Repeat steps 3-4 a couple more times on random small documents
7. When you’re done making your stack, TAB over to the second pane, and type til you get “Copy to…”
8. TAB over to the third pane and type until “Desktop” shows up
9. Hit Return
   • All the files you’d added in the first pane should now be copied to your Desktop

Now consider a few possibilities of “The Comma Trick”

a million monkeys typing » D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition

The D*I*Y Planner: Hipster PDA Edition

by Douglas Johnston

In this day and age, paper-based planning (PBP) is a notion roughly analogous to horse-and-buggies, pneumatic networking, sliderules, and steam-powered lawnmowers — in other words, ancient technology.

So, why are we suddenly seeing a resurgence in paper-based organizational tools like planners, index card sets (a.k.a., the Hipster PDA), file folders, pocket briefcases, and honest-to-goodness real-ink pens? Outside of a number of philosophical reasons, I believe that it's ultimately a matter of knowing that these things actually work. After all, not even the trendiest tools last for more than a season if they don't deliver (and I have a junk drawer overflowing with orphaned gadgets to prove it). There's a proven track record behind paper-based planning, and an endless array of options for those people wanting to define --and redefine-- their systems.

Despite being an IT professional, I've found that the dozens of technology-based systems I've used over the years have never really been fully effective solutions for managing my time and projects, and so bits and pieces of my life are now scattered in a hundred incompatible systems, never to be seen again. The last straw was when several of my Palm databases became badly corrupted last year, the bad data having also spread to the desktop and the backups: needless to say, much was lost. I began to wonder if the Day Runner I used a lifetime ago could be resurrected and made useful again. This plan had its problems, however: not only was the nearest Staples a four-hour jaunt away, but their shrink-wrapped forms were quite limited in variety and usage, not to mention very expensive -- a typical pack of 20 To Do sheets was about $5 USD. The D*I*Y Planner project was thus born as a way of providing a wide assortment of forms at little cost. (Although, my wife might argue that I was just being cheap.) With the realization that others might find it useful, I decided to create a system that could be tweaked to suit almost any methodology or situation, relying heavily upon user feedback for ideas and direction.

The latest member of the D*I*Y Planner family is the Hipster PDA Edition, a set of 34 organizational and planning templates designed specifically for 3x5“ index cards. I've received hundreds of requests for a kit like this, many claiming it was an important option for creating an ideal customized system. At first, the demand took me by surprise; after all, why would you want to print so tiny on cards that contain so little information and are so hard to file?

Mine's “Smaller, Smaller.”

Again, this time with the chorus: it's about the work, not the meta-work.

Martin Ternouth's impressive system for managing his projects with paper.

Technorati Tags: GTD, lofi, paper, projectmanagement, workflow

The main reason I stick with Entourage for all my calendar, TODO list, and—to a certain extent—archival email needs, comes down to one word: glue.

As annoying as Entourage is in so many ways, I love that I can basically associate anything with anything via the “Link” functionality. This provides a handy little landing pad for any task, note, event, email, or contact onto which you can drop any other Entourage object as well as virtually any item from the Finder (for some reason it doesn’t easily handle URLs, which seems kind of dumb: use .weblocs as a workaround). Entourage then perpetually remembers that association in both the linking and linked items. Got it? Group like with like, and then get to anything from anything (Steal this idea, Apple; use Spotlight).

So, I can associate an email message with a TODO, attach a text file to a calendar event (see my article in June’s MacWorld), and even, apparently, attach Applications and folder paths to any Entourage object. Why is this last one so freaking handy? Lemme show you.

iPhoto hung in Tiger until I removed “Keyword Assistant” from the installer.