I was reminded recently of a comment my son made a few years ago when I asked him if he wanted a Palm Pilot to keep track of his calendar, contacts, etc. He said “No thanks, I’ll stick with my trusty paper and pencil. They never crash, unlike your PDA and computer which seem to do so quite frequently.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that statement and it still rings true. While there are certainly many software applications, on-line tools, and techno-gadgets we can all use to increase productivity, sometimes the old-fashioned methods work just fine.
And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist like my son (really, he is) to learn how to use them.
Much as I love my computers and the Internet, sometimes it’s faster, simpler, and safer to jot down ideas, lists, and tasks on a piece of old-fashioned paper. A single sheet is easy to fold up and put in a pocket to carry along. It’s the ultimate in portability.
Here are three of my favorite paper-based productivity products. I especially like the fact that it’s virtually impossible for me to run out of them because they’re available 24/7 to download from the Internet.
This is a great collection of several dozen quite useful paper products. It includes regular 8 1/2 X 11 lined paper (both college ruled and narrow ruled), graph paper, law ruled paper, music paper and Cornell paper, columnar paper (for number crunchers like me), stationery, letterhead templates, and 10 fax cover sheets.
2. Organize IT (sorry, this is no longer available)
My favorite form from this site is the weekly planner. It helps track projects, next actions, and roles and responsibilities in your life. I also like his personal details sheet which is a contact form with space for name, address, DOB, home/work/cell/fax and two more phone numbers. There’s also room for five email addresses, five web sites, and eight messaging IDs.
This is the official home of the free do-it-yourself planner kits. They have printable forms in a variety of sizes including classic (5 1/2 X 8 1/2) and Hipster (for 3 X 5 index cards). Most sheets can be printed full-size or 2-up. They offer nearly 200 forms that include a set of free do-it-yourself templates, covers, documentation and other gear for creating your own highly customized paper planner system.
Note: These forms were inspired by David Allen’s productivity system Getting Things Done (GTD) but they’re flexible enough to be used with any method, including your own.
Try them out before you invest in one of those high-priced fancy planner books. Leave a comment to let me know how they work for you.
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