I have a day book of sorts on my iPhone. I have put six projects I need to work with (like "Egyptology study" "Short story website", "Language studies") and then I write under them everything that needs to be done there.

Each morning I go through all the projects and pick one thing to work with. Like today under "Egyptology studies" I picked up:Study hieroglyphs. And "Short Story Website": draft the next story. "Language studies": read something in French.

I tick them off my list once I´ve done them and tomorrow I´ll pick something else from the list.

I put a timer on when I work on these and once the time´s out, I move on to the next task. If the task was left unfinished and is something that would be good to finish (like my story for example), I´ll continue with it tomorrow until it is done. And once it is finished, I tick it off and then choose something else from the project as my next to-do-thing.

Leena

I do something very similar - at work I have a book I call my brain. I write everything in it, things I think of, things people come up to my desk and ask me about, notes from meetings etc. Each morning I review my book and either transfer them to my to do software or do them straight away if they are not going to take long. Then I review my to do software and make a list of things I want to achieve that day.

Until about five or six years ago my memory was great but these days I forget stuff if I don't note it down immediately. Once I started this I stopped forgetting to do things people asked for.

That's why God invented paper, so we wouldn't have to carry all of this stuff around in our brains!

I try this with index cards but people are forever rolling thier eyes at me i even put them in a binder now so people can't look at me as if I'm crazed

Ficlite,
If something works for you, who cares what other people think? If you're not hurting someone, do whatever you want.

As a 'List' person, I can't imagine not having a *Brain Dump* system so that everything gets done without fear of missing deadlines or having details fall through the cracks. Yikes, life throws us so many unexpected challenges we need to provide ourselves with whatever assistance we can grab.

Ficlite, I hope you continue to use your system with confidence and pity the poor, rude wretch that rolls. There are dozens of successful firms like Filo..., Frank...and tekkie programs that successful people acknowledge to be responsible for their accomplishments.

I've finally gotten used to my note book but also to having one for each thing like meds pain and my al time favorite recipes. Does anyone else who is paper based like I am have trouble trusting the computer or really knowing how to use it effectively?

I use my iPhone for quick notes but mostly for appointment reminders and the alarm to remind to take meds, vitamins, etc.. I'm a paper person. I learned a very hard lesson some time ago about depending on my memory or a computer. Computers aren't always reliable. I have a planner that is big enough, but not too big, to fit in my handbag. One thing I will do if I'm going shopping is to take the daily page or list page out and clip it to a small clipboard. That way I'm not overloading my purse and lightening my load while walking through stores.

Hope this helps!

Lynnie

I use the computer more and more, especially for lists, but will never give up all my paper. Society is trending away from that; I read that we may soon not get paper phone books any more! I guess we are supposed to hunt for numbers online. Some systems are good, and I don't know why they aren't retained, but I suppose this is one more way to save money, though touted as a way to be more "green." And I'm in favor of saving money and helping the environment, but some things like this don't help people much, just make their lives more complicated.

In that vein, the phone company also has discontinued their numbers for both weather and time. I can see that weather would have to change daily and might cost them something. But time? That could be fullly automated. Seems we are paying more and getting less.

Another form of paper I'll never give up unless forced is checks.

The point is, some of us will probably use a combination of methods (paper, online, phone features, etc.) to keep track of our lives. The objective is to find the best way that works for us, which can also change over time. For example, I used to keep a lot of financial records on paper, and now I put a lot of the info, including my budget, onto Excel spreadsheets. But I print those out from time to time.

I only write about 2-3 checks a month and I wouldn't do those if I had a choice.

I haven't used a phone book in probably 5 years. I have much better luck online. Everypne I know who has their own biz (several hundred) no longer buys space in the yellow pages.

Different strokes for different folks...